Above: Shunske Sato in rehearsal with the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra. Featured image: Sato in concert with the  Australian Brandenburg Orchestra. Photo credit: Kitt Photography

SATO AND THE ROMANTICS is a perfect example of how a concert following historically informed performance (HIP) guidelines can both thrill and train the audience at once. In this latest Australian Brandenburg Orchestra’s tour of Sydney and Melbourne the listener’s pleasure and education comes from hearing historical instruments play 19th century works imbued with Romantic ideals by Mendelssohn, Grieg and Paganini.

Guest violin virtuoso Shunske Sato leads the Brandenburg in Mendelssohn’s String Symphony No 3 in E minor MWV N 3 (1821) to open the concert. The first movement starts with crisp and arresting unison. The warm drama of the gut-stringed instruments is matched by intricate, well-articulated sensitivity as fugal tensions are intelligently resolved. Shunske Sato’s energetic, clear and commanding direction of the string group from his place in the first violins is rewarding to witness.

Following this opening movement the successive moods or characters are presented with well placed, fresh intimacy on the period strings. Important musical detail is never missed or skimmed over, being let to emerge clearly from the texture.

Sato’s journey with the Brandenburg’s HIP string musicians continues with the magic of Grieg. His evocative, Romantic treatment of early dance forms in his Holberg Suite Op 40 from 1884 is the latest work in the concert. Its timbral requirements are in no means compromised by this presentation on period strings.

Grieg’s nouveau-Baroque dance music styles are here heard with much warmth of tone and a collective lush quality. The work is once more directed by Sato with spirited precision and an eagerness to present movements with accurate and engaging character.

A highlight of the concert’s first half is the playing of this work’s penultimate movement, the ‘Air: Andante religioso’ this delivery successfully projects expansive and quite spellbinding beauty, particularly in the City Recital Hall space.

Following interval, we are taken back to 1824 but to a work no less Romantic and evocative than late 19th -century Grieg. Sato’s intense and daring performance of Paganini’s Violin Concerto No 4 in D minor MS 60 is a memorable and breathtaking collaboration in the Brandenburg’s history.

One of many vehicles composed to enhance Paganini’s celebrity, this violin concerto is littered with his signature fiendishly difficult string techniques. However, Paganini’s innate musicality and need to communicate powerfully via finely crafted melodic ingredients also shine in his work.

Sato does superb justice to all of the above. Sensitive use of portamento reaching, gutsy glissandi, stunning left hand pizzicato and mesmerising circles of veiled harmonics take us on quite a ride. Just as exciting as this filigree are cantabile moments in the middle ‘Adagio flebile con sentimento’ movement which sing exquisitely with full tone and layered tender expression.

Once more, true Romantic ideals hold true and are successfully showcased on Sato’s well worked period violin, now supported by conductor Paul Dyer and a large Brandenburg orchestra of concise and dramatic period-instrument punctuation.

This important performance event is not to be missed. If this is your first Brandenburg event you will want to treat yourself to many more. The tour continues in Sydney on September 9, 14, 16 and in two concerts on September 17. The concert is to be heard in Melbourne on September 10 and 11.