★★★☆☆ Maybe not marvellous but certainly strong playing from the Benauds.

Melbourne Recital Centre, Salon
July 18, 2015

The warm, wooden interiors of the Recital Centre offer a welcome escape on cold Melbourne nights. That and the promise of music provided by some seriously high-calibre performers. Last Saturday, it was the Benaud Trio, named for late Aussie icon and cricket-commentator Richie Benaud, who took to stage of the intimate Salon. The Trio’s members are of seriously respectable station: brothers Lachlan and Ewen Bramble (violin and cello respectively) hold Associate Principal chairs in the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, and pianist Amir Farid is one of Australia’s most highly regarded associate artists and soloists. For this, their second set of Melbourne concert for 2015, the trio came together to perform music that was both forward thinking, and retrospective.

The evening kicked off with Arnold Schoenberg’s early masterpiece, Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night), in an arrangement of the original 1899 string sextet by Schoenberg’s former pupil Eduard Steurmann. The Benauds gave a mostly solid performance of this innovative work, delivering long, luscious melody with some powerful swells in emotion. The reading was rich and full, though at times the violin didn’t come off...