It’s not every woodwind player who can hold an audience spellbound through a five-minute comedic monologue before tap-dancing his way through a tricky bit of contemporary music. But then not everyone is Martin Fröst, possibly the world’s leading clarinet virtuoso and something of an all-rounder.

The 42-year-old Swede was making a welcome return to Australia in the company of the Australian Chamber Orchestra, lead by geographical neighbour  Satu Vänskä, in a program that reflected both of their musical heritages.

We began with Rautavaara’s A Finnish Myth – highly dramatic – all snaps, clusters, glissandi and dynamic contrasts. Who knows what tale was being told, but it’s clearly a good one. This set the tone for the evening, the ACO playing with concentrated brilliance, passion and sumptuous tone. Denisov’s charming reinterpretation of Paganini’s Ninth Caprice followed without a break, Vänskä  pulling off a dazzling set of variations over increasingly disturbing harmonic accompaniments from the orchestra.

The rangy Fröst then arrived on the platform, regaling us with a cheeky monologue about improvisation that turned out to be a part of the work in hand, DTangled, a piece for clarinet, strings and terpsichorean soloist by his brother Göran Fröst. Like some kind of crazy Scandinavian...