German insights put Austrian romance under microscope.

Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House
April 6, 2016

There was a fascinating congruence of old and new in this first of two concerts, which see the distinguished German conductor Christoph von Dohnányi remarkably making his Australian debut at the age of 86. A vital link to a rapidly disappearing tradition, Dohnányi grew up in Berlin in the 1930s and later studied with his grandfather, the noted composer Ernö von Dohnányi, a man who knew Brahms personally and had seen Bruckner and Mahler at work. But Dohnányi Jr. has also always been a forward thinker; a man who cites new music champions like Hans Rosbaud, Hermann Scherchen and Karl Amadeus Hartmann as important influences. A double bill of Berg and Bruckner, then, was an ideal way to reflect this particular maestro’s peculiarly Janus-like qualities.

Berg’s Violin Concerto was the final work of the composer who took the 12-tone method of his teacher Schoenberg and turned it into something more immediately emotionally involving. It’s not a late work though, since the composer would have had no idea that he would die of an infected insect bite at the age of 50. That tragedy took place a...