Evening Music for a Summer School (1949) and Summer Nocturnes (1951) are early fruits of the richly creative context of Cambridge. Evening Music embodies Pruden's romantic ideal, featuring a nostalgic theme silhouetted against a murmuring accompaniment. Warm orchestral hues blend with the pastoral tone of the piece. Four clarinets in the scoring reflect the unusual make-up of the School orchestra and darken the palette; a horn solo (played by Bob Burch) which frames the work conjures up the idea of twilight (in the manner of Britten's Serenade). The first performance took place on Thursday night, 27 January 1949, under Larry's direction at the piano. Alex Lindsay, among the violins, liked Evening Music enough to include it in the repertoire of the Alex Lindsay String Orchestra later that year, when it was programmed as part of a fashion festival at the Majestic Cabaret in Wellington, with the strings augmented by wind and percussion from the cabaret orchestra. One reviewer liked the easy lilt of the music, noticing the infusion of jazz and Latin-American dance elements to brighten the colour and mood. A second performance was scheduled for 29 December 1949 but it appears to have been replaced by Pruden's Children's Suite at the last minute.