Hot on the heels of other concerts-for-screen from Pinchgut, Musica Viva Australia, the Australian Chamber Orchestra and many others, comes Bach’s Universe, the first ensemble concert from the ABO’s Brandenburg One digital platform. It features German Baroque violin virtuoso Jonas Zschenderlein, who was to have featured at the live performance but arrived in Australia just in time for lockdown. A quick pivot, and Bach’s Universe has become an artful 40-minute digital concert, filmed in an empty City Recital Hall.

Jonas Zschenderlein in a film shoot for Bach’s Universe with the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra, City Recital Hall, Sydney, July 2021. Photo © Keith Saunders

Central to the all-Bach program is B Violin Concerto in E Major and the final movement from the G Minor Sonata for solo violin. Zschenderlein captures the tumbling, headlong energy of the unaccompanied presto with an exciting edge, which sounds risky but always works, like a high wire artist relishing the danger. As for the concerto, the ensemble attacks the first three chords with an electrifying bounce, catapulting us into the action with a precision articulation that makes the music dance. As soloist, Zschenderlein can take...