Mischa Maisky is the aristocratic icing on this opening night musical cake.

Verbrugghen Hall, Sydney Conservatorium
April 9, 2015

One of the very best things about chamber music festivals is the opportunity to whip up a programme full of variety, both in terms of repertoire, but more uniquely by offering a line up that wouldn’t normally find its way simultaneously onto the same concert stage. With last night’s opening concert in the 2015 Musica Viva four-day festival, the powers that be did just that with two of the world’s finest string quartets, an up-and-coming clarinettist, two excellent pianists and one living legend: the Latvian-born Israeli cellist Mischa Maisky.

In this review, the first shall be last, so let me begin with the string ensembles. The British Doric String Quartet and the Pavel Haas Quartet from Prague are two contrasting outfits exemplifying all that is most intriguingly diverse about modern quartet playing. Both were invited to open on their home turf so to speak, the former offering Thomas Adès’ scintillating, brittle Piano Quintet, and the latter Dvořák’s warmly effusive ‘Slavonic’ Quartet No 10. The differences couldn’t have been more marked.

The Adès is one of those modern works that surprisingly...