Wit and elegance from Israel Camerata Jerusalem Orchestra

Musical rigidity was avoided by way of delicate articulation, a gorgeously mellow tone and graceful phrasing.

Avner Biron and the Israel Camerata Jerusalem Orchestra.

Founded in 1983 by Avner Biron and still under his direction, the Israel Camerata Jerusalem Orchestra is Israel’s pre-eminent chamber orchestra. In Australia for the first time, the ensemble is squeezing four concerts into a week — zipping between Melbourne and Sydney to present identical twin programs.

Biron and his players offered an engaging opening night performance, underpinned by exceptional cohesion and an air of serene potency. Upright, still and devoid of visual flourish, the ensemble precisely channelled its efforts to realise the emotional contrasts of Dvorak’s fervent Cello Concerto, Mark Kopytman’s solemn Beyond All This … and Haydn’s luminous Symphony No 85.

Joining the ensemble as soloist, cellist Zvi Plesser gave a genial, lyrical and unlaboured reading of the Dvorak concerto. After skipping too swiftly across the first movement’s virtuosic flashes, Plesser’s musicality came to the fore in the Adagio as he oscillated between hushed musing and straining ardour. While rubato was again in short supply in the final movement, musical rigidity was avoided by way of delicate articulation, a gorgeously mellow tone and graceful phrasing.

In chamber arrangement, the work gained a sense of immediacy but lost some of its sweeping intensity, particularly in the outer movements. Helping avoid a feeble outcome was the disciplined intensity with which all sections of the orchestra approached their parts — the sound very much in the Russian and eastern European traditions, where tonal richness is in demand and technique-related surface noise is considered an unacceptable intrusion.

These characteristics became more noticeable in the lush string blooms, melancholic wind meanders and clattering frenzies of Kopytman’s ode to survival. From a simple, searching ascending line, the work takes darker turns, moving from suspense to desperation, battle fury to plaintive outpourings. Returning to the sinewy lines of lament with which it began, the music slowly receded: a glimmer of light, carried forward, fading into darkness.

From this experience of grit, suffering and determination, the glittering majesty of the fourth of Haydn’s Paris Symphonies provided welcome relief. Tripping lightly across the symphony’s charming ornamental bursts and gliding through its stately dances, Biron and his players showed their capacity for wit and elegance. Gently pressing upon syncopations and shaping lines with leisurely charm, Biron kept his powder keg dry until the finale: unleashing his alert ensemble, which dutifully zipped across muted passages and burst jubilantly to the finish line.

Israel Camerata Jerusalem Orchestra. Elisabeth Murdoch Hall, Melbourne, September 15. The orchestra is at the City Recital Hall, Sydney, tonight.