The Australian Chamber Orchestra opened Leonskaja & Mozart with a work by a fictional composer. In Strauss’ final opera, Capriccio, a poet, Olivier, and composer, Flamand, vie for the amorous attentions of the countess Madeleine – Flamand writing a string sextet for her birthday. But unlike Adrian Leverkühn’s Violin Concerto in Mann’s Dr Faustus, real-life audiences actually get to hear this work, which forms an overture to the opera and had its premiere as a concert piece before Capriccio itself was performed. With Roman Simović as Guest Leader, the ACO presented the sextet in arrangement by the very much non-fictional ACO Principal Cellist Timo-Veikko Valve.

Flamand’s (or Strauss’) sextet is divided into three very clearly demarcated sections: exposition, development and recapitulation. Valve retained the lighter sextet texture in the exposition – string lines swelling and dovetailing – before the full ensemble rumbled to life in the dramatic development. Simović, feet firmly planted on the stage, sparred pyrotechnic virtuosity with violist Ben Ullery – on loan from the Los Angeles Philharmonic – and Valve’s passionate cello solo shone before the work receded to its tranquil denouement.

Described as a lioness of the keyboard, Elisabeth Leonskaja entered unpretentiously onto the stage along with the...