The Sydney Symphony Orchestra’s Conductor Laureate Vladimir Ashkenazy returned to the podium for this concert of English music – Vaughan Williams’ Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, alongside Elgar’s Cello Concerto and Enigma Variations. While the repertoire reads like an album of popular classics, it served to showcase the excellent work of the SSO strings, who shone from the luminous opening of Vaughan Williams’ Fantasia to the noble Nimrod of the Enigma Variations.

Andreas Brantelid performing with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra in 2018. Photo © Rene Jeppesen

Ashkenazy drew exquisitely distinct colours and shapes from the divided string orchestra and fine solo lines in Vaughan Williams’ well-loved Fantasia, tracing an arc from the delicate opening to a rich, almost organ-like sonority at the climax, before the afterglow of the final chord held the audience transfixed.

The strings brought plenty of depth too to Elgar’s Cello Concerto, the composer’s final major work, written in the aftermath of the First World War. The soloist, young Swedish-Danish cellist Andreas Brantelid, unveiled a beguiling, caramel tone in the opening flourish – more refinement but less muscle than the reading by Jacqueline du Pré that...