Midway through an east-coast tour, Olli Mustonen and five members of the Australian Chamber Orchestra have reached a point where they resemble members of a band, who have jammed together for decades. This weekend, Sydney audiences have two more opportunities to experience their musical genius, before the tour continues to Brisbane and Wollongong.

Olli Mustonen on piano and Maxime Bibeau on double bass. Photo © Julian Kingma

The modest set-up on stage belied the powerhouse that filled the City Recital Hall as Mustonen took his place at the paino, alongside Satu Vänskä and Liisa Pallandi on violin, Stefanie Farrands on viola and Timo-Veikko Valve on cello.

Beginning with Darius Milhaud’s La création du monde (The Creation of the World) written in 1923, the first part of this concert was a polyphonic showcase that preceded the concert’s more harmonic title piece, Schubert’s ‘Trout’ Quintet, after the interval.

In a recent interview with Limelight, Mustonen said that he saw the program as following the forces of nature on a journey from darkness to light, and even through the process of Creation itself. This proved to be true of both the program in its...