Sydney Reviews

Violin virtuoso Ray Chen is busy gracing the concert halls and stages of the world. His return to Australia last week gave fans the rare treat of seeing him perform at Sydney Opera House and his one-night Sydney recital was a feast of many courses.

Taiwan-born but raised in Brisbane, Chen picked up a violin at 4, was a soloist for the Queensland Philharmonic Orchestra by 8 and won the Australian National Youth Concerto Competition at 13. Chen stands out amongst the brilliant not just for his musicianship—for which he has earned a swag of prestigious international awards—but for his use of technology and social media to inspire a love of classical music in a younger global audience.

The diverse program for Friday night’s recital displayed a love for variety. Opening with the intricate Giuseppe Tartini’s Devil’s Trill, Chen moved on to César Franck’s four-part Sonata in A major, which he explained corresponded with four stages of love. Chen broke with tradition to chat between songs and have a laugh with the audience, playfully musing at one point that “perhaps I should stick to violin rather than comedy”.

Chen was accompanied by lecturer in piano at the Sydney Conservatorium Lee Dionne, who stepped in at short notice. No one would have guessed. They partnered beautifully and Dionne provided the musical counterpart for the violin with precision and ease, bouncing up and down energetically on the padded piano seat.

After the intermission, Chen came out unaccompanied for Bach’s stunning Chachonne but a broken string one minute into the piece drew an audible gasp from the audience. Chen smiled, stopped, then sat down at the piano to restring the violin. How lucky it was that it had happened at the very start of the song, he joked, because if it had happened in the last minute, we would have had to listen to it all over again. Throwing his broken string to a delighted boy in the front row, Chen got back to work, filing the hall with the exquisite sounds of Bach’s piece, which Johann Brahms once described as “a whole world of the deepest thoughts and most powerful feelings.”

The centerpiece for the night was Battini’s notoriously difficult Dance of the Goblins, which best showcased the incredible command Chen has over his instrument. He told the audience he chose it “to prove I’ve still got it”. Proof was provided. To use Chen’s analogy for the night, he rounded off the meal by offering the delicious sorbets of Antonín Dvořák‘s Slavonic Dance and Pablo de Sarasate’s emotionally-charged Zigeunerweisen. 

The concert hall was full of children up late, with parents eager to inspire their budding prodigies. One starry-eyed girl in the front row, maybe eight years old, smiled her way through the whole recital, as the violin sang on and filled the hall with warmth and brilliance. Chen was generous with his encores, finishing half an hour past the programs end. 

After the audience started filing out after the second encore, presuming the recital had finished, Chen returned to stage to play one last song and offer one last quip – that this was his first “walking ovation”. Having given himself fully to the performance, Chen’s incredible talent, expressive delight for his craft and connection with the audience made for a night of pure musical joy.