One of the pleasures of Sydney Symphony Orchestra’s In The City concert series, up the road from the Opera House in the Recital Hall at Angel Place, is that you get to see often-hidden musicians in a relaxed setting.

For the latest one, it is the turn of 14 members of the woodwind and brass sections to feature in the spotlight performing three delightful wind pieces – two by a youthful Richard Strauss and the other by Antonín Dvořák, on the verge of his illustrious career, thanks largely to being championed by Johannes Brahms.

The program features an impressive battalion of horns – five of them for one of the Strauss works – alongside paired oboes, flutes, bassoon, clarinets and contrabassoon. For Dvořák’s Serenade in D minor Op. 44 the flutes are replaced by a cello and double bass.

Strauss was only 17 and very much under the influence of his musically conservative horn virtuoso father Franz when he wrote his Serenade for 13 wind instruments in E-flat Op. 7. It’s very much in the Classical Mozartean style, although by no means a slavish copy of the master’s works. 

As if in tribute to his dad, young Richard gives the horn quintet...