A dark, dramatic statement opens Mozart’s Piano Quartet No 1, K478, strings and piano firmly asserting their presence, clearing space for a piano solo that leaps up and trickles down the keyboard. Kathryn Selby, who always brings a beautiful, shimmering patina to her piano tone, was joined in this Selby & Friends concert by a crack-squad trio of strings from the Sydney Symphony Orchestra – Concertmaster Andrew Haveron, Principal Viola Tobias Breider and Principal Cellist Umberto Clerici – rendering Mozart’s writing with clean, confident strokes.

Mozart’s First Piano Quartet was written in 1785, during a fertile period for the composer when he was composing and performing three or four piano concertos a season. It is no surprise, then, that his Piano Quartet should sound almost like a piano concerto in miniature – it was written the same year as his K.466 Concerto, also in a minor key.

Selby and the strings brought a refined timbre to the Quartet in City Recital Hall, while Selby rippled up and down the piano with a smooth, soft-edged sound. While the string sound was generally very clean and refined, Clerici brought some grittier energy to his lines when it was called for. The strings swelled in...