City Recital Hall, Sydney
November 11, 2014

If there were but a single word permitted to describe Ray Chen, on the evidence of this final Musica Viva concert of the year it would have to be “sunny”. That isn’t to say that there is anything slight about the Taiwan-born, Australian-educated violin virtuoso. He confessed that his idol is David Oistrakh and there is something about the Russian violinist’s style and dash that has clearly rubbed off. But this program was a doom and gloom free affair and all the better for it, say I.

Chen picked a pair of bright and effusive works for the first half of his recital – the brilliant Mozart A Major, Sonata No 22 and the diamantine Prokofiev Second Sonata in the well-matched key of D Major. The Mozart was perfectly pitched to show off his immediately obvious charm with its bravura opening Allegro di molto. The impeccably dressed violinist clearly relished this movement with its catchy melodies and its cheeky little come-round-again chorus.

The lengthy ‘Theme and Variations’ second movement gave Australian pianist Timothy Young a fair suck of the sauce bottle as well (indeed, he was excellent throughout), though with his elegance, poise and expressive...