If this year’s festival’s opening concert was a “classy variety show”, then this concert was even a class above, especially when it included 25 world premieres!

Horn player Peter Luff, associate professor at Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University, began proceedings with Malcolm Arnold’s Fantasy for Horn, Op. 88. This joyful piece set the scene for what was to come.

Australian Festival of Chamber Music 2022 Governor’s Gala © Andrew Rankin

Luff’s masterful double-tonguing and clear, beautifully rounded tones, even in the many rapid-note passages, brought the work to life. The icing on the cake was his extraordinary control in the fortissimo calls and pianissimo distant echoes in the middle section. My partner remarked that it was an “amazing” piece.

The piece had been commissioned by the Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. It was eerily ironic that the Queensland Governor was unable to attend the concert, as she was on duty in Birmingham at the Commonwealth Games. However, she did send a video greeting, which was played before the concert.

When Benjamin Britten was 19, he wrote his Phantasy Quartet for Oboe and String trio, Op. 2, which the BBC premiered. Britten recorded in his teenage diary...