In their latest offering, entitled Intimate Letters, the ACO shook up traditional concert format with the assistance of the Bell Shakespeare Company. Under the direction of London Symphony Orchestra concertmaster Gordan Nikolic and theatre directors Peter Evans and Susanna Dowling, Intimate Letters is a unique music and theatre collaboration.

Actors Ella Scott Lynch and Marshall Napier read excerpts from the letters of Mozart, Smetana and Janáček around the ACO’s performance of the related musical works of the three composers. Unless you’ve spent hours poring over the personal, handwritten and occasionally rambling correspondences of various composers as Susanna Dowling has, then these spoken additions grant new insight into the obsessiveness, darkness and enthusiasm of Janáček, Smetana and Mozart respectively.

As that list above might have suggested, Mozart’s Divertimento in F, the first work on the program, was slightly out of place in the company of the tortured, late masterpieces of the two Czech composers that followed. The Divertimento, one of three composed by the sixteen-year-old Mozart in 1772, is a short, delightful, Italianate piece with three sparkling movements. The ACO’s performance was charming, and immediately affirmed the belief I have that they are one of the world’s best chamber orchestras. The balance was perfect; the accentuation at the end of the first Allegromovement was precise and effective; the sustained melody in the second Andante movement showcased the players’ exquisite tone. It’s the little things that elevate a performance from good to exceptional, and the ACO absolutely deliver every detail.

The first letter of the evening was one written by Mozart to his sister, Maria Anna, in 1772. Ella Scott Lynch drew some laughter from the crowd before the ACO began playing with her reading of the composer’s oddball remarks – it seems Mozart was more cogent with notes than words. In stark contrast, the work that followed, Smetana’s String Quartet No. 1 in E minor, is no laughing matter. Entitled Z mého života, or ‘From my Life’, Smetana intended for this work to be a tone picture of his life, tracing from his youth and initial interest in art to his permanent deafness, with which he was diagnosed at the age of 50, two years before beginning work on this quartet. After it was deemed too orchestral for a quartet, Smetana’s work was given its first performance by a larger body of strings (including, notably, a young viola player named Antonin Dvořák), which, sadly, he was completely unable to hear.

The first movement opened frantically, giving way to an ominous theme in the viola part. Smetana named this the “Call of Destiny” theme, a menacing prophecy of his future misfortune, present from the outset. After losing his physical hearing, Smetana was tortured by constant buzzing, shriekings and high-pitched whistles, which he found so troubling that they often prevented him from composing. The first movement is passionate, depicting Smetana’s early interest in Romanticism and the indefinable. The second movement is less dark, and recalls Smetana’s love of dance and the comfort he took in his success as a composer. The ACO carefully controlled this movement, lending it a sense of a proud, nationalistic joy rather than unbridled happiness, completely appropriate to the overall sense of the work.

In the third movement, Nikolic and the first violins shone in gentle, melodic, solo sections, and the group took full advantage of the broad, rich harmonies. The fourth and final movement began joyfully, but was punctuated by the occurrence of a high E over a frantic body of strings, representing Smetana’s deafness, and the A-flat Major 6th chord he reported hearing daily between the hours of 6 and 7. As the movement drew to a close, the phrases began to end more abruptly, signaling the failing of the composer’s hearing.

Unlike the Mozart, before which Lynch read from one letter, the Smetana is interrupted between movements by Marshall Napier reading excerpts from the composer’s writings. The thing with multi-movement pieces of music is that it’s all the movements together which form a coherent whole. Indeed, one of the main reasons applause between movements is considered a faux pas is that it can disrupt the momentum of a work. I found that the between-movement interruptions of actor Napier were slightly disruptive during the Smetana, and although they were insightful, would have preferred if only one letter had been read at the start of the piece, as with the Mozart.

Four of the ACO players performed Leon Janáček’s String Quartet No 2 – known also as the Intimate Letters the program is named for – in collaboration with actors from Bell Shakespeare in November 2012. Principal cellist Timo-Veikko Valve has since been responsible for arranging the quartet for string orchestra. While the Smetana arguably benefited from being played by a larger group than the composer originally intended, the Janáček would have been more intimate with just four – a less proficient string orchestra might perhaps not have been able to preserve the incredible intimacy of the letters in question. The ACO, however, manage just fine, a testament to their excellent communication.

Janáček wrote the letters in question over the last decade of his life to Kamila Stösslová, a young woman he was deeply devoted to. Janáček and Kamila exchanged more than 700 letters, in which she was steadfastly aloof, and he unreservedly infatuated. Their correspondence caused much tension between Janáček and his already estranged wife Zdenka, but did not appear to terribly bother Kamila’s husband, who was probably comforted by the age gap between the two of nearly 40 years (when they first met, Janáček was 63, Kamila 25).

The work opens eerily, with sections to be played on the bridge in the viola and cello parts. As in the Smetana, there was some particularly excellent work from principal viola Christopher Moore. I made a note during the performance that the third movement, more so than any of the others, sounded distinctly as though it were the playing out of a fantasy. I read later, in Timo-Veikko Vale’s introduction in the program, that the lullaby section of the third movement was written by Janáček for the child he and Kamila never had. It’s really quite extraordinary how well Janáček was capable of expressing himself through music. I sincerely hope that there will be more opportunities for Australian audiences to hear selections from his modest collection of truly exceptional chamber music in the future.

Here, I felt the actors were better employed, as the several readings demonstrated the progression of Janáček and Kamila’s relationship. I still found the speaking slightly disruptive, but it’s always great to see something a little bit different, and the letters did undeniably shed light on the genesis of Janáček’s artistic masterpiece. As with From My Life, Intimate Letters is one of the composer’s most deeply intimate works. All in all, this was a beautiful program, with a unique emotional undercurrent running throughout.

The ACO are on tour with Intimate Letters until September 2.