Simone Young began her second series of concerts as Chief Conductor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra with Cathy Milliken’s Fifty Fanfares project creation Catalogue of Sky, a richly textured tone poem-like piece inspired by various skyscapes and their liberating emotional effect.

Simone Young conducting the Sydney Symphony Orchestra © Pierre Toussaint

Hilary Hahn was technically flawless in Prokofiev’s First Violin Concerto, composed in 1917 around the time of the Classical Symphony. Hahn showcased the felicities of this kaleidoscopic work with infinite finesse and imagination: the sly humour, the charming often tender lyricism. This is Prokofiev more in jeu d’esprit mode than enfant terrible tantrum, but there’s still plenty of passages of trenchant virtuosity, what one commentator described as “grit in Prokofiev’s oyster”. The SSO’s contribution was equally fine: at the end of the first movement they produced a shimmering effect like “shot” silk.  In the second movement it’s interesting that where Maxim Vengerov in his 1995 recording follows Prokofiev’s instruction to play the passage on the bridge con tutta forza, with the result that pitch is at times endangered, Hahn avoided the tonal precipice. The perilous double stopping passages are...