Sydney Opera House, Concert Hall
June 14, 2018

A soloist needs to have a certain level of star power to tip the conventional overture-concerto-symphony concert structure on its head, but German violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter had more than enough to relegate the symphony to the first half of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra’s program last night – a star power she more than justified with a warm and brilliant performance that saw her return to the stage for several encores.

With the Queen of the Violin playing the mighty if well-worn Tchaikovsky Concerto at one end of the concert, SSO Chief David Robertson opened with something more unusual – the First Symphony of Vasily Kalinnikov, who was robbed by poverty and tuberculosis (he died within days of his 35th birthday) of what could have potentially been a much more significant and productive career.

Anne-Sophie Mutter, Queen of the ViolinAnne-Sophie Mutter. Photo © Herald Hoffmann, Deutsche Grammophon

Kalinnikvov was Moscow-based initially – Tchaikovsky got him a conducting gig – but ill health forced him to seek warmer climes in the Crimea, where he wrote his well-received First (and later his Second) Symphony. While Kalinnikov’s breakout work is still...