Golden flute lights fuse for a flaming string serenade

Vox Amoris, a fantasy for violin and strings - commissioned by Barbara Blackman, dedicated to the memory of Dr Louis Green, written by the Latvian composer Peteris Vasks and given its world premiere on this tour by Richard Tognetti and the ACO - attempts to sustain a piece almost only by intense, expressive tonal melody.

The locus classicus for such a strategy is perhaps Beethoven's Cavatina from the String Quartet, Opus 130, although Beethoven permits himself a brief, highly fragmented intermediary section and, despite its impact, the piece is not long.

Vask's work also has a central section, marked off by two cadenzas building to a climax of emotional abandon, but the change of tone in this section seemed to intensify the previous mood rather than offer contrast. The first cadenzas seemed a bit self-lacerating and flailing.

It is a beautiful work, like a long cinematic nocturnal soliloquy, though I found it a bit too intense to stay the distance. Tognetti made an earnest appealing sound. It is a work that deserves repeat performances, perhaps with some attention to contrast of sonority.

In Carl Vine's Pipe Dreams and Jose Serebrier's Flute Concerto with Tango the flautist, Sharon Bezaly, was a soloist of brilliance, polished control and deft agility. Her sound has the soft glow characteristic of the golden flute she plays and she draws from it gentle richness and evenness.

Vine's concerto, which the ACO premiered in its 2003 season with Emmanuel Pahud, followed a familiar Vine mould: argumentative-fast, sentimentally slow, energetically physical. Though he has obviously based it on classical antecedents, Vine gives this his own personality by pushing the slow music a little towards mawkishness and the final music towards modern dance, both perhaps with a glint of affectionate irony.

Serebrier's work, receiving a world premiere on this tour, was dominated by rhythmic music and passage work designed for display, and played a little too much to the more obvious aspects of writing a virtuoso work. Handel's Concerto Grosso, Opus 6, No. 7, the concert opener, received slightly perfunctory treatment (perhaps understandably in a program of so much new music), but Tchaikovsky's Serenade for Strings at the close had all the ACO's characteristic voluptuous brilliance and colour.

Review by Peter McCallum in the Sydney Morning Herald

Here's a pipe dream that comes true

ISRAELI flautist Sharon Bezaly's commitment to contemporary music is beyond doubt: she has commissioned or inspired almost 20concertos. For her tour with the Australian Chamber Orchestra she is performing Australian composer Carl Vine's Pipe Dreams (written for French flautist Emmanuel Pahud) and premiering a flute concerto by composer-conductor Jose Serebrier.

Both concertos allowed Bezaly to unleash her dazzling artistry. She executed rapid leaps and runs with breathtaking assurance while maintaining superb clarity of articulation. By contrast, she displayed smoothly sinuous phrasing in more reflective sections.

Bezaly's tone was even and full-bodied: warmly mellow in the lower register, piercingly clear at the top. Just as impressive was her astonishing breath control (Bezaly is an exponent of circular breathing) and subtle ornamental flourishes. Like Pahud, she is the complete artist on her chosen instrument.

The two works offered different perspectives on the concerto form. Although appealing and well-crafted, Serebrier's piece is little more than a vehicle for Bezaly's virtuosity. Vine's is a more integrated work: its haunting central passage provided a satisfying emotional counterweight to the scintillating brilliance of the outer sections.

Latvian composer Peteris Vasks's Vox amoris, written for Richard Tognetti and the ACO, was the other world premiere on the program. Conceived as a love story for solo violin and string orchestra, the piece eschews virtuosic display in favour of slow, steady speeds and soft dynamics.

With his rich, sostenuto tone, Tognetti was a highly expressive soloist. His violin sometimes soared freely above the accompaniment, elsewhere it was tightly woven into the orchestral texture. Vasks gives his curvaceous cantabile lines enough dynamic, textural and rhythmic contrast to create a compelling, well-proportioned work.

A polished account of Handel's Concerto Grosso, Op.6, No.7 was a pleasing, if unremarkable, opening to the proceedings. However, in Tchaikovsky's Serenade for Strings, Tognetti and the ACO again demonstrated their ability to invigorate repertoirestaples.

Right from the tense, taut opening, the players generated an atmosphere of urgency and drama that still respected the work's melodic impulses.

Their ensemble sound was lean and muscular in some places, warm in others. Textural clarity and nuanced dynamic shading revealed a multitude of inner-voice details. Occasional intonation problems and moments of loose ensemble did little to detract from this refreshing, exciting account of Tchaikovsky's masterpiece.

Review by Murray Black in The Australian