“Piazzolla”, Australian Chamber Orchestra. At Llewellyn Hall, February 4. Reviewed by CLINTON WHITE.

ONE never knows quite what’s in store at an Australian Chamber Orchestra concert; it’s the imaginative programming, arm in arm with the consistently brilliant playing, that keeps the orchestra fresh and the audiences flocking.

Even as the ensemble mounted the stage and before it had even played a note, there was whistling and cheering from the capacity be-masked audience, perhaps partly due to the novelty of being at a live music concert.

The audience’s initial enthusiasm did not wane during the entire performance because ACO director Richard Tognetti had put together a program that plunged into that most sensual of dance rhythms, the tango. Quite simply, it was a concert of great fun and light heartedness.

And it was made even more fun by the very smart choice of classical accordionist James Crabb as the guest artist.

Works by Argentine composer Astor Piazzolla, father of the so-called “nuevo tango”, bookended a truly diverse selection of works, including by Australian composer Elena Kats-Chernin and the American Gabriela Lena Frank, who is about as multicultural as one person could be, with her father an American of Lithuanian Jewish heritage and her mother a Peruvian of Chinese descent.

Even George Frideric Handel got a guernsey with one of his concerti grossi, given a very modernistic and spirited performance, with Argentines Carlos Gardel (an arrangement by John Williams) and Antonio Agri, and Brazilian Heitor Villa-Lobos providing works that gave ever more loft to the programming intelligence.

Crabb played in all the pieces, even the Handel, bar the Australian premiere of the sixth movement, “Coqueteos”, from Frank’s “Leyendas – An Andean Walkabout”, in an arrangement for strings, which she wrote in 2003.

Crabb had written arrangements of Piazzolla’s two works, his iconic signature piece, “Libertango”, which opened the show and drew more cheering and whistling from the audience, and the longer show-closer, “Angels and Devils Suite”.

Crabb’s unrivalled virtuosity shone throughout, with some astonishing, lightning-fast finger dexterity across the right-hand manual that, instead of keys like a piano, had several rows of buttons arranged chromatically, giving an incredible range of pitches. 

He had superb control of expression, going from the impossibly soft to muscular, barking chords so typical of the tango style.

Crabb also arranged the Agri work, “Desde Adentro”, which originally had been orchestrated by José Carli. Beginning with Tognetti, with Crabb joining in, and then each of the section leaders, the texture built into the whole ensemble, including some very nice piano work from Stefan Cassomenos. The ensemble resembled the open, lush sound of a palm court orchestra, only a lot more expansive and with superior class.

The piano featured in Kats-Chernin’s piece “Torque”, too. It was an extraordinary tension-builder that which followed the sublimity of Handel. It began with a growling rumble at the bottom of the piano and built into a relentless driving rhythm, with hints of tango, and fading to nothing at the end.

At the end of this remarkably engaging concert, the audience demanded more, and the ensemble did not disappoint. Piazzolla’s romantic, emotion-packed “Oblivion” brought this memorable, rose-in-clenched-teeth concert to a close.