Music / Chamber Philharmonia Cologne. At St Christopher’s Cathedral, Forrest, February 14. Reviewed by ROB KENNEDY.

“CLASSICAL music the world over” is the motto of the Chamber Philharmonia Cologne, and inspiring people across generations and nations to fall in love with classical music is what they do.

Founded in Cologne, Germany, since 2009, the Chamber Philharmonia Cologne crosses the world giving an extraordinary number of concerts a year, around 300. In this concert of music by Vivaldi, Mozart, Paganini and Saint-Saëns, Canberrans got to hear just how good they are.

With St Christopher’s Cathedral at capacity, they opened with Vivaldi’s, “Four Seasons”. Even sitting in the last pew, the excellence of their sound was immediately apparent. What stood out was their quality of tone and the balance between the performers. Didorenko leading the group did a particularly fine job of handling all the solo violin moments while making his instrument create all those highly skilled sounds this position requires.

They all attacked the music with gusto and great varying dynamic as is required in this sparkling work. The “Presto” of “Summer”, a particular stand out. There was much to like about their performance throughout this work.

After the interval, the “Moses Variations”, by Niccolò Paganini. Played on just one string on the cello, which highlights Paganini’s extraordinarily strong writing ability, this work has a mysterious movie-like theme to open. It’s a deeply sensitive, pensive and rhythmic piece that wafts over a listener. Everything about the music and the playing was just gorgeous.

Mozart’s “Divertimento in F Major”, K 138, Salzburg Symphony No. 3, in three movements is a bright work that was particularly well programmed as the penultimate piece of the night. It’s not a concert opener or a concert closer. Yet, as with all Mozart’s works, it was brilliantly composed and perfectly balanced.

“Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso”, by Camille Saint-Saëns, for violin and orchestra is the perfect concert closer. This showpiece, composed for his friend and violinist Pablo de Sarasate, as were several other pieces by Saint-Saëns, this was the standout work of the night.

It is a challenging piece of high technique, which was performed expressively by Sergey Didorenko on violin. It has memorable tunes that were so catchy, it was later arranged by Bizet and Debussy. This piece has great subtlety and fire, and it was performed with equal enthusiasm and finesse.

As several players have an extremely wide repertoire, I think they would handle a concert of contemporary works with equal aplomb; but this concert was a beauty.

The large appreciative audience asked for an encore. They got one. Vittorio Monti’s Hungarian folk dance, “Csárdás”, it was a blast. Then the audience got another encore, Bach’s “Air on G String”.