While the opening concert of this year’s Musica Viva Festival showcased primarily solo voices, the second offering, billed as Connections, saw musicians pairing up, beginning with a robust outing of Rachmaninov’s 1901 Suite No 2 for two pianos – written in the wake of the Second Piano Concerto – by Auro Go and Konstantin Shamray. From the boisterous fanfare of the opening, the pair embraced the powerful textures that can be drawn from two Steinways placed side by side, hints of playful repartee shining through Rachmaninov’s lush writing. The second movement’s waltz had a rippling energy – and some beautiful soft moments – while Go and Shamray captured the intense lyricism of the music in the Romance, and indeed, throughout the piece, before the mad fingers-flying dance of the Tarantella.

Aura Go. Photo supplied

Following the Rachmaninov, Shamray was joined on stage by violinist Tessa Lark for Grieg’s Third Violin Sonata, written in 1887. Lark brought a shining, polished sound to her solo Bach in the Festival’s opener, but here her tone took on a smouldering edge, Lark giving us charged opening gestures and plenty of folky lilt in the first...