Emotions ran high both on the stage and in the stalls when a packed audience of 600 settled back in their seats to see one of Australia’s most revered chamber music groups play for the last time.

As Musica Viva Australia prepares to celebrate its 80th anniversary in 2025, it is also saying farewell to its flagship ensemble for 30 of those years, the Goldner String Quartet.

Back in 1995 two married couples – Dene Olding and Irina Morozova, Julian Smiles and Dimity Hall – were introduced to audiences to celebrate both the MVA’s golden anniversary and to honour its founder Richard Goldner. The foursome had begun their musical lives as members of the Australian Ensemble. Now the Goldners are hanging up their bows as a quartet and, after a year of farewells, gave this their final concert at Sydney Conservatorium’s Verbrugghen Hall which has seen many of their greatest triumphs.

It is also the venue where the first Musica Viva concert was performed, with Goldner taking part on the locally made 1947 AE Smith viola which now belongs to his former student – Morozova.