Three great figures in jazz – Django Reinhardt, Stéphane Grappelli and Benny Goodman – and a legendary fighter plane were the touchpoints for highly acclaimed Sydney composer Holly Harrison when she wrote her work Spitfire for clarinet and string trio.

First launched four years ago at SA’s Coriole Music Festival, it is taken for an edge-of-the-seat, loop-the-loop flight in the last of Sydney Symphony Orchestra’s Cocktail Hour series over two nights as the unlikely but hilariously irreverent companion to WA Mozart’s heavenly Clarinet Quintet.

Mozart & Harrison, Utzon Room, Sydney Opera House. Photo © Sydney Symphony Orchestra

The orchestra’s Principal Bass Clarinet Alexander Morris is the star of the night with two outstanding performances, swapping between soprano and basset clarinets for the Mozart. The string quartet is led by Lerida Delbridge, who is normally found heading up the second violins.

The quintet’s captivating melodies wash over the Utzon Room’s audience of 200 like full cream drizzled over a delicious dessert, Morris’s pure tone and sensitive phrasing attentively complemented by Delbridge and Sophie Cole’s violins, Justin Williams’s...