It’s hard to know what (James Joyce) might have called the small art gallery and indoor plant retailer in which the Australian Romantic & Classical Orchestra presented its Bohemian Dreams program, nestled among light industrial warehouses in suburban Brisbane – a plantbox? A musicbox?
Call it what you will, everything about this box felt cozy. […]
With their listeners sitting so near, there was no need for the players to force their instruments’ tone, and therefore the parts of the concert that most took the breath away were not the virtuoso fireworks (though there were plenty of those) as the moments when you felt that the musicians were inviting you to join conversations they’d been having in rehearsal already: the smooth imitative curves that opened Franz Krommer’s Clarinet Quintet, the birdlike chirps tossed between van Bruggen’s clarinet and Piccoli’s violin in the same work, Gregan’s infectiously joyous arpeggios in Giovanni Punto’s Horn Quartet.
Andrew Robinson, ClassikON
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