Review – Sunshine after Storms

23 August, 2026, Mosman Art Gallery, NSW

Four o’clock on a Sunday afternoon is a rather perfect time for a concert: that little space between the busyness of the day and winding down for the evening. And this hour of music fitted neatly into it. However, my busyness had gotten the better of me and as I hurried towards the Mosman Art Gallery, a few minutes late, lovely strains of piano music came wafting out of the building towards me. There was something rather beautiful about hearing the music before I could see its source, and anticipating what was to come. Have you ever followed a snippet of random music and discovered a concert in a grand space? I highly recommend it!

I slipped quietly into the gallery’s Grand Hall during Schubert’s Lebensstürme (Storms of Life), played four hands by Diana Weston and Mary Sambell. The piano filled the room with a wonderfully warm sound. Schubert’s storm was certainly there, but so too were those moments of calm and reprieve described in Weston’s excellent program notes.

Soprano Hester Wilson then introduced Schumann’s Frauenliebe und Leben (Woman’s Life and Love), Op. 42. Written almost 200 years ago, it follows a woman from the first time she sees the man she loves through courtship, engagement, marriage and motherhood, until the first time, as Wilson rather poignantly explained it, that he causes her pain — by dying.

Wilson was wonderfully expressive throughout. It would have been useful to have the complete song texts or translations in the program (and I confess I surreptitiously looked them up on my phone) but much of the emotional story could be read in her face and heard in her voice.