The sweet sound of Melissa Farrow’s lone recorder drifted through the Art Gallery of New South Wales as people filed into the gallery’s summer blockbuster Rembrandt and the Dutch Golden Age: Masterpieces from the Rijksmuseum. Farrow, dressed in period costume (autumnal floor-length dress, hair in ringlets), gave the audience its first taste of Rembrandt Live – a collaboration between the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra and AGNSW as part of the Sydney Festival – as the sound of hooves, birdsong, church bells and muted Dutch voices filtered through the speakers.

Melissa Farrow in Rembrandt Live at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Photo © Jamie Williams

In the spirit of last year’s Nude Live, which saw artists from Sydney Dance Company performing alongside, and responding to, the artworks in AGNSW’s Nude: Art from the Tate Collection, Rembrandt Live featured the Brandenburg musicians playing the music of 17th-century Dutch composers – including Constantijn Huygens, Jacob van Eyck, Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck and their contemporaries – amongst the works of the Golden Age masters in a performance that gave the gallery space the feel of a bustling Dutch city.

Against the backdrop of the paintings, this immersive musical...