London Philharmonic Orchestra Principal Conductor Edward Gardner, soprano Samantha Clarke and WASO.

Schubert, Britten and Brahms. The University of Western Australia’s Winthrop Hall.  This was always going to be special.

Gardner, also Music Director of The Norwegian Opera and Ballet and Honorary Conductor of the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra (he was Chief Conductor from 2015 to 2024), is renowned for bringing a visceral excitement and textural clarity to anything he conducts. This concert is no exception.

Edward Gardner Conducts Brahms, WASO, Winthrop Hall, Perth. Photo © Rebecca Mansell

The evening kicks off with Schubert’s 1822 unfinished masterpiece, the Symphony No. 8 in B minor.

From the get-go, Gardner generates a sense of brooding anticipation with the first theme, WASO’s lower strings and then woodwinds setting forth the musical proposition with immaculate phrasing and balance before cellos and clarinet bathe the sonic landscape with the second theme’s warmth and lyricism.

In the ensuing development section, Gardner conveys us to distant keys and chromatic excursions with a restrained tension, the better to effect a less abrupt entry into the (mostly) serene kingdom of the second movement presided over by descending pizzicati in the basses, soaring winds and...