The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra opened its 2018 season on Saturday night with a single gala performance, involving two highly distinguished soloists in pianist Brazilian Nelson Freire and Australian Heldentenor Stuart Skelton, under the direction of the orchestra’s chief conductor Andrew Davis. A wide-ranging program opened with Carl Vine’s 1986 symphonic essay Microsymphony written for the Sydney Youth Orchestra followed by Freire performing Beethoven’s fifth and final piano concerto. There then came Florestan’s dungeon aria from Fidelio, a series of excepts from Wagner’s Ring Cycle and finally, some rarely heard ballet music and the concluding aria from Verdi’s second-last operatic masterpiece Otello.

The ‘Micro’ in the title of Vine’s first essay in the form refers to its 12-minute brevity. He has composed seven symphonies (One to Six are recorded by the Sydney Symphony Orchestra under the late Stuart Challender) and, as the MSO’s 2018 Composer in Residence, another is planned for first performance on 30 August. The performance tightly conveyed the work’s youthful verve and vitality.

Archduke Rudolf, Beethoven’s patron and pupil, gave the first performance of the Emperor Concerto. What a fine pianist he must have been. The opening Allegro brought a distinguished tone but perhaps avoided what Arrau once described...