Music / Water and Spirit, Canberra Symphony Orchestra Chamber Classics. At Albert Hall, April 13. Reviewed by SARAH BYRNE.

There was a great turnout for the latest matinee in the Canberra Symphony Orchestra’s Chamber Classics series, this one entitled Water and Spirit.

On this occasion the chamber ensemble was made up of Kiri Sollis on flute, Sam Payne (stepping in for Patrick Suthers) on cello and pianist Edward Neeman for a program themed around stories of – well, water and spirits.

The advertised program was slightly rejigged to open with Sollis’ perfect solo performance of Debussy’s amuse-bouche Syrinx, origin story of the pan pipes. The naiad Syrinx, resisting the advances of the god Pan, has transformed into reeds, which Pan now gathers and plays. The piece is crystalline and languid, and serves to remind us that long before Gail Simone’s Women in Refrigerators there were Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Told from Syrinx’s perspective, one suspects the piece might feel a good deal more urgent.

This was followed by the enjoyable Weber Trio in G minor for flute, cello and piano, Op 63. The first movement’s description as allegro moderato is initially belied by a lachrymose and pretty duet of flute and cello, but the piece livens up considerably with a rousing conclusion to the second movement, a third movement Shepherd’s Lament with a hint of the huntsman about it, and the call and response in the assertive final scherzo. An intriguing aspect of the composition throughout is the absence of a trio section, Weber preferring to alternate themes focused on two of the three instruments for most of the piece.

We were then fortunate to hear a lovely piece by a composer with whom I was not familiar, Amy Beach, who wrote in the first decades of the 20th century, and who might have found Syrinx simpatico, given that her talent was largely suppressed by her husband during his lifetime.

The two movements, a pastorale and a caprice, are rich and romantic, a touch impressionistic in the caprice (hearkening back to the Debussy perhaps) but gorgeous and filmic throughout. At times, however, the cello almost completely disappeared – perhaps understandable if Payne was a last-minute substitute.

The program concluded with its longest piece, Hummel’s Variations on Schone Minka (Op 78), that much-interpreted Ukrainian folk tune.

Neeman brilliantly navigated Hummels’ fiendish runs and rills, and if a lovelorn Cossack happening to cross the Danube on the way to war is a slight reach on the theme of “water and spirit”, there were no complaints from this audience. The piano certainly sounded liquid, at any rate; the flute appropriately lissome and georgic. The cello was lovely when taking the melody in the first movement, but after that was again lost a little too often in the mix. Overall though, a very entertaining performance.

These CSO chamber concerts are always a delightful way to spend an hour on a Sunday afternoon.