In a happy coincidence, coming home in the car after the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment concert, ABC Classic FM was playing the Australian Chamber Orchestra's recent live performance of Mozart's Eine kleine Nachtmusik with Richard Tognetti at the helm. It was a chance to directly compare the approach to baroque music by two internationally acclaimed ensembles. Listening to the ACO, I was immediately struck by the immaculate articulation of every run and the distinctive connectedness of the ensemble, which ensures momentum and exhilarating dramatic tension. In contrast, Rachel Podger adopts a more theatrical attitude in her solos, emphasising the space between passages of intense musical activity and playing to the audience with her physical expressions. The orchestral musicians are understated, polished and impeccable in their entries and musical observation, a different energy to the dynamism of the ACO.

Llewellyn Hall with its unsympathetic acoustic for chamber ensembles provided a challenge for the visiting orchestra, and I'm not sure why the backing acoustic panels were not used to assist in reflecting the sound out into the auditorium. The need to be heard above the ensemble while directing seemed to influence Podger's playing particularly in the first half of the program, where speed was achieved at the expense of clarity in some rapid runs in Haydn's Symphony No.26 in D minor. Her stance facing the orchestra with back to the audience and the configuration of the musicians projected a sense that they were playing to themselves rather than the listeners. It was in the cadenzas of Mozart's Violin Concerto No.1 in B flat, K207, that Podger captured our attention and gave us her impressive interpretation of the music.

Johann Christian Bach's Symphony in G minor, Op.6 No.6 was the highlight of the concert for me, with a continuation of the disciplined accuracy heard in the first half, but a greatly enlivened performance. Swooping bows in the Andante più tosto adagio built anticipation and climaxed in the energetic final Allegro molto movement.

Mozart's Violin Concerto No.5 in A major concluded the evening, with dazzling cadenzas from Podger who nobly persists with her preference for gut strings despite the unpredictable effects of the instrument adjusting itself to temperature changes without warning. Lovely chords from oboists Daniel Bates and Le Duarte and horns Roger Montgomery and Martin Lawrence in the Adagio offered a soothing caress before the lively third and final movement lifted the pace in the Rondo in Minuet time. There was an additional treat in the shape of the Rondo K373 as encore, made all the more appealing by the relaxed interpretation by musicians who know they have played well and have reached the end of another fine performance.