A cracking inaugural concert gives the Robertson era the look of a potential age of gold.

Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House

February 15, 2014

There was breath of fresh air blowing through the hallowed halls of the Sydney Opera House last week and his name was David Robertson. The Sydney Symphony Orchestra has a new Chief Conductor and, on the basis of this, his inaugural concert, he promises exhilarating times ahead.

The hallmark of genius was not just in the invigorated playing and inspirational conducting, it went to the very heart of how to engage your existing audience and hopefully how to draw in a potentially a new one – in other words, smart programming.

The starting point was Stravinsky’s Symphony in Three Movements – a work from relatively late in his neoclassical period. Stravinsky’s borrowings from the past, it turns out, was the inspiration for John Adams’ Absolute Jest, which followed. And Absolute Jest borrows from Beethoven, whose Seventh Symphony made up the second half. Wheels within wheels, then, and a satisfying musical whole whose deeper resonances were to be revealed in the listening.

The Stravinsky burst upon our ears with a great clangour of sound before the military precision of the...