Both major works on the Sydney Symphony Orchestra’s Sibelius and Mahler programme began on the very edge of silence. Whisper quiet strings, teased gently out of the air by Danish conductor Thomas Søndergård, became a cushion over which violinist Janine Jansen floated with subtle grace in the opening bars of Sibelius’ Violin Concerto, before her tone grew more lyrical, ringing with passionate vibrato.

The Dutch violinist, whose last appearance with the SSO was in 2015 playing the Brahms Concerto, brought exquisite colouration and technical finery to what was to be Sibelius’ only concerto. Sibelius – whose own ambitions to be a virtuoso violinist were thwarted by a cocktail of injury, performance anxiety and a late start – wrote the concerto in 1904, and while the initial reception was mixed, Jascha Heifetz’s championing of the work in the 1930s cemented its place in the repertoire alongside the other major violin concertos. Its dedicatee Willy Burmeister wrote upon receiving the score: “I can only say one thing: wonderful! Masterly! Only once before have I spoken in such terms to a composer, and that was when Tchaikovsky showed me his concerto.”

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