QSO: MUSIC TO SOOTHE YOUR SOUL

The weekend’s Mozart and Brahms concert showed once again why Brisbane is lucky to have Queensland Symphony Orchestra (QSO) call it home. QSO delivered Mozart’s Oboe Concerto in C and Brahms’s Symphony No.2 with superb musicianship and heartwarming musical interpretations.

The soloist Diana Doherty brings a true Mozart feeling to the Oboe Concerto: playful, cheeky, and delightfully elegant. Her enthusiastic playing is contagious and impossible not to respond to! Doherty’s encore jazz piece brought a lively complement to the classical program, even getting a few laughs from the audience for her charismatic engagement.

To change the scenery, Brahms’s Second Symphony brings a vast array of melodies, tempos, and time signatures. From the grandiose and triumphant, to the lyrical and melodic, the four challenging movements demonstrate just how strong the QSO musicians are together. The conductor, Alexander Briger, follows the score notes of the violin virtuoso and conductor, Joseph Joachim, whose aim was to produce the music exactly as Brahms wanted it to sound. Briger’s commitment to classical authenticity is matched by the orchestra’s commitment to this performance: sharp, clean, and beautifully executed!

QSO’s Maestro series has five more concerts on the 2021 program, with the next instalment featuring works by Barton, Sibelius, and Verdi on the 26th of June.

Photography by Peter Wallis