Shakespeare uses his sorcerer hero Prospero in The Tempest to make his goodbyes to playwriting and the theatre, saying “but this rough music I here abjure” as he drowns his book of spells “deeper than did ever plummet sound”.

Music and the plays are interlinked and this was the nub of the first of three Symphony Hour concerts curated for Sydney Symphony Orchestra by Umberto Clerici, former Principal Cello turned conductor, in which works by four composers were commingled with readings from the play by Australia’s pre-eminent Shakespearean, John Bell.

John Bell. Photo supplied

Clerici, who was recently appointed Chief Conductor of Queensland Symphony Orchestra, said the two performances, one in the early evening, the other mid-morning, were aimed at capturing city workers and people going on to dinner or a lunch, adding that the programmes would provide “something different”.

Introducing Bell, not only a friend but someone whom he admired, Clerici said the actor, director and “risk-taking impresario” founder of Bell Shakespeare particularly loved the musicality of the Bard, whose works have inspired countless composers both great and small.

This “hour upon the stage” featured two pieces the SSO has never performed in its 116-year history, including five minutes of kinetosis-inducing sea storm music from Arthur Honegger, Prelude for The Tempest, which set the scene, and the brief stately Overture from Henry Purcell’s The Enchanted Island.

Bell, who at 83 has lost none of his stage presence and vocal clarity, easily switched character as Prospero, Ariel and the “monster” Caliban, conducting a dialogue with himself as the drunken butler Stephano and clown Trinculo plotting to murder the hero.

The readings were neatly interspersed with extracts from Sibelius’s magnificent Suites 1 and 2 from the Incidental Music to The Tempest, written in 1925, not long before he himself “drowned his book” and stopped composing altogether.

As Osmo Vänskä’s recent all-Sibelius concerts showed, much of the great Finn’s works had been sadly neglected in Australia until Vladimir Ashkenazy’s stewardship of the SSO from 2009-13 turned the tide. These evocative extracts – the longest of them less than four minutes – worked beautifully with Bell’s readings.

After two storms at sea it was time for a third with a thrilling performance of Tchaikovsky’s eponymous symphonic poem, with Miranda and Fernando’s love scene a Romantic highlight.

Spectacular windswept bowing from the strings, alarming tuba passages and crashing cymbals and bass drum heralded the storm but the best moments – the calm opening and the chorale-like close – belonged to the horn section led by Euan Harvey, who thoroughly deserved his ovation from the large and enthusiastic audience, which included several schoolchildren, bringing the concert that special energy that SSO subscribers used to enjoy with the late Richard Gill’s Meet the Music concerts.

Clerici and Symphony Hour returns in July with works by Ravel, Michael Nyman and Rachmaninov, featuring saxophonist Jess Gillam.