QSO: ENCHANTED WITH CHAMBER MUSIC

Chamber music is a wonderful way of experiencing classical repertoire close up and personal, and the Queensland Symphony Orchestra’s final instalment for their chamber series 2025 season, Brahms Sextet, is nothing short of fabulous!

Born in the Renaissance as a form of social entertainment, chamber music evolved from informal gatherings where friends and family would play together. This is exactly the kind of feel created by the QSO’s chamber music series. Listen to classical pieces that were written to be played in a smaller room and take the opportunity to get (re)acquainted with the instruments rarely highlighted in the orchestra when playing together. Bravo to the pieces written for small groups of musicians – so personal, so exquisite, and allowing the QSO musicians to really shine.

Opening with Enkindling by the orchestra’s own viola player, Bernard Hoey, the concert sets the mood for an uplifting program which both challenges and rewards the audience. Enkindling is a vibrant piece. How vibrant? Imagine a juggler with five arms keeping seventeen balls in the air – spinning mid-flight, rolling away, or getting swooped up for another throw. The musicians themselves described this work as “hard, crazy, and good,” and there is no better way to put it! The four string players – Rebecca Seymour and Sonia Wilson (violins), Bernard Hoey (viola) and Hyung Suk Bae (cello) – deliver a super tight performance. It is a marvel to watch the quartet power through this composition with ease.

Then, moving on to the Sonatine for Oboe and Bassoon by André Jovilet, we get to watch a conversation between two wind instruments. These often get hidden in a symphonic composition, where strings usually steal focus, but in chamber music we have the luxury to take in the beauty and the challenge of these instrumental voices. The Oboe (Sarah Young) and the Bassoon (Nicole Tait) chatter like a pair of birds, complementing and challenging each other, listening, responding, and enjoying some breathy banter.

Finally, we arrive at the title piece of this concert – Johannes Brahms’s String Sextet No.2 in G. Romantic music is generally easy to listen to, but Brahms is especially like thick, smooth liquid, effortlessly flowing, molding to the shape that holds it. He allows the listener to melt into the piece and feel the full passion of his music. Of course, this would not be possible without the masterful interpretation of the musicians. Two violins (Gregory Lee and Mia Stanton), two violas (Imants Larsens and Nicole Greentree) and two cellos (Kathryn Close and Hyung Suk Bae) perfectly balance each other, without any one string register taking over the piece. By having two of each, Brahms allows for highlights and differences that keep the fireworks going through the 35 minutes of this composition. Four fantastic movements go by in a flurry, and the audience leaves entirely content, melted into their seats.

Three such different compositions, and one really enjoyable hour of music in the bright, beautiful setting of the QSO studio.