The Queensland Symphony Orchestra has introduced a new concert series this year, QSO Up Close, designed to celebrate music written for chamber orchestra.

In the intimacy of the QSO Studio, its luxurious rehearsal space in the ABC building at Southbank, it is possible to be much closer to the music and musicians. Sight-lines are excellent wherever one sits, in its non-allocated arrangement of rising seats. Additionally, the venue offers audiences an opportunity to enjoy works that would not usually be played by QSO in the Concert Hall.

A Baroque Tribute, directed by Concertmaster Natsuko Yoshimoto, did just that with a program that explained and illustrated the nature of counterpoint and fugue with works by some of the great masters of the musical form.

Natsuko Yoshimoto conducts the Queensland Symphony Orchestra in A Baroque Tribute. Photo supplied

The program commenced with Mozart’s Adagio and Fugue in C Minor, K. 546 for string orchestra. A short adagio followed by a fugue, this piece was written late in his life and perhaps at a low point. It is an overwhelmingly dark and brooding piece, a long way from the mostly joyous and bright music that...