ASQ National Season 2013

AUSTRALIAN STRING QUARTET

NATIONAL SEASON 2013 ADELAIDE BRISBANE MELBOURNE PERTH SYDNEY

WELCOME Our National Season 2013 celebrates some of the greatest music ever written for the string quartet. Music that is bold, music that is purely beautiful, fragile, ecstatic; timeless music brought to life on our exquisite set of Guadagnini instruments.

Some works have a monumental presence, such as Beethoven’s op 130, featuring the exquisite gem of the Cavatina before its original final movement – the immense Grosse Fuge.

Other works are evocative of a specific time and place such as the exciting collision of East and West in Debussy’s turn-of-the-century Paris, or the soulful joy of Brahms’ A minor quartet.

In this company it would be remiss to

omit Schubert, so Timo-Veikko Valve, Principal Cello of the Australian Chamber Orchestra, will join us for the wonderful Cello Quintet in C. On a more contemporary bent, we will dive into the upbeat world of bebop with Dutchman Louis Andriessen’s Facing Death and unveil our newly commissioned string quartet by Andrew Ford. The year will also include other cornerstone quartet composers such as Haydn, Mozart, Mendelssohn and Bartók, performed over four captivating national tours.

We look forward to seeing you during a magnificent season of music ahead.

Australian String Quartet

Mozart’s playful and gentle ‘Hoffmeister’ quartet contrasts with a mature masterpiece by Brahms and a jazz-influenced contemporary work.

Mozart / String Quartet in D major K499 Louis Andriessen / Facing Death Brahms / String Quartet in A minor op 51 no 2 Adelaide / Wed 6 Mar Sydney / Fri 8 Mar Brisbane / Tue 12 Mar Melbourne / Wed 13 Mar Perth / Mon 18 Mar

Brahms’ first two string quartets share a long gestation period, and the continued polishing results in a lustrous finish. The second quartet in A minor shows an assured professional at work. Brahms takes liberties with form and tempo, contrasting lyrical calm with dramatic twists and moments of turbulence – beauty emerging from struggle.

Mozart’s quartet K499 is intimate music for private performance before the age of the grand concert hall. Imagine an audience of the lucky few in an ornate rococo salon, hearing for the very first time the sublime aria for the violin in the quartet’s slow movement.

Louis Andriessen, the most famous Dutch composer of our time, is perhaps best known in Australia for his opera with Peter Greenaway, Writing to Vermeer. In Facing Death (1990), the composer dares four string instruments to imitate Charlie Parker’s alto saxophone. The result is bebop for strings; astringent, exhilarating and very fast.

Presented in association with the

Haydn and BartOk prepare the way for the flawless unity of five strings in Schubert’s famous quintet.

Haydn / String Quartet op 64 no 5, Lark Bartók / String Quartet no 3 Schubert / String Quintet in C major D956 With guest artist Timo-Veikko Valve, cello Appears courtesy of the Australian Chamber Orchestra Melbourne / Mon 27 May Brisbane / Tue 28 May Perth / Thu 30 May Sydney / Tue 4 Jun Adelaide / Wed 5 Jun

The weightless song of the first violin has put a stamp on Joseph Haydn’s quartet op 64 no 5, nicknamed the Lark. Just as the lark’s song heralds the European spring, so this quartet evokes the season’s fragrant freshness.

A string quartet is often considered the reflection of a composer’s innermost beliefs, and Béla Bartók’s third quartet, composed in 1926, is the credo of a very bold artist. Intense and untamed, the one-movement work dives headlong into mysterious depths, with its folk influences, percussive gestures and wild glissandi.

Cellist Timo-Veikko Valve joins the ASQ for Schubert’s String Quintet.

The 31-year-old Schubert produced an astonishing amount of music in the last year of his life. Among the finest was the quintet for strings in C major with its innovative use of two cellos playing a succession of duos. High-spirited and defiant, with a heartbreaking slow movement, it is an extraordinary landmark work. It is as if the compositional mould was irreparably broken when Schubert died, with few composers since attempting quintets with a second cello.

Debussy’s first major work and one of Mendelssohn’s most brilliant creations meet music from our own time.

Mendelssohn / String Quartet in E minor op 44 no 2 Andrew Ford / String Quartet no 5 (new commission) Arvo Pärt / Fratres Debussy / String Quartet in G minor op 10 Adelaide / Fri 6 Sep Perth / Mon 9 Sep Melbourne / Wed 11 Sep Brisbane / Mon 16 Sep Sydney / Tue 17 Sep

Completed only a year before the composer’s breakthrough work Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune, Claude Debussy’s String Quartet in G minor had a controversial reception in 1890’s Paris.

It is now one of his best loved works with its gamelan-inspired pizzicato passages, modal harmonies and rich undulating landscapes of the Andantino.

Mendelssohn’s String Quartet op 44 no 2, a work of dazzling string writing completed on the composer’s honeymoon, negotiates with ease the fine line between the elegiac and the spectacular. Intriguing similarities with the later violin concerto include the key of E minor and the opening theme.

Andrew Ford’s fifth quartet will be his second commission for the ASQ following the folksong suite Tales of the Supernatural, which premiered at the 2004 Adelaide Festival. Arvo Pärt’s Fratres, in the Estonian composer’s distinctive and meditative style, exists in numerous versions bearing testimony to the work’s enduring popularity.

In his Grosse Fuge, Beethoven poses a great musical question while Schnittke’s quartet follows a more spiritual path.

Schnittke / String Quartet no 3 Beethoven / String Quartet op 130 and Grosse Fuge Brisbane / Mon 11 Nov Sydney / Tue 12 Nov Melbourne / Wed 13 Nov Perth / Mon 18 Nov Adelaide / Wed 20 Nov

Alfred Schnittke’s work welcomes all periods of music in a polystylistic embrace. The third string quartet refers to Shostakovich’s musical signature and includes quotations from Stabat Mater

by Lassus and Beethoven’s Grosse Fuge. Was this defiance? In the Soviet Union, a lot of music was frowned upon – perhaps Schnittke was saying nothing should be ruled out.

Beethoven’s late string quartets are extreme art. They disarm us with their adventurous harmonies, radiant melodies and abrupt contrasts of mood. In the B flat quartet, a banal dance leads to

the sustained lyricism of the famous Cavatina. The original finale was a 20-minute double fugue, the Grosse Fuge that pushed the players’ technique to its limits. For Beethoven’s publisher it was too much, and the composer was persuaded to write something shorter and more crowd pleasing. In this concert, the ASQ puts the Grosse Fuge back in its original setting, finishing this concert and the year with one of the most significant quartets of all time.

AUSTRALIAN STRING QUARTET Kristian Winther, violin Anne Horton, violin Stephen King, viola Rachel Johnston, cello

The Australian String Quartet (ASQ) was established in 1985 and is Quartet-inResidence at the University of Adelaide.

Touring widely to capital centres and regional communities and commissioning many works by leading Australian composers, the ASQ has had a major impact on the musical life of Australia.

The Quartet is broadcast frequently on ABC Classic FM and regularly record for commercial release.

One of Australia’s finest music exports, the ASQ has appeared at international music festivals and toured extensively throughout the United Kingdom, Europe, New Zealand and Asia in recent years. In 2012, the ensemble’s international performance highlights included engagements at the prestigious Trasimeno Music Festival in Italy which saw the Quartet working with leading international artists Angela Hewitt, Anne Sofie von Otter and the Quartetto di Cremona.

The members of the Australian String Quartet are privileged to perform on a matched set of Guadagnini instruments.

Hand crafted by Giovanni Battista Guadagnini between c.1743-1784 in

Turin and Piacenza, Italy, these exquisite Italian instruments were brought together through the vision of Ulrike Klein. The instruments are on loan to the Australian String Quartet for their exclusive use through the generosity of Ulrike Klein, Maria Myers and the Ngeringa Farm Arts Foundation.

Kristian Winther plays a 1784 Guadagnini Violin, Turin Anne Horton plays a 1748-49 Guadagnini Violin, Piacenza Stephen King plays a 1783 Guadagnini Viola, Turin Rachel Johnston plays a c.1743 Guadagnini Violoncello, Piacenza, ‘Ngeringa’

“...a powerful new dynamism...”

Graham Strahle, The Australian, March 2012

GUEST ARTIST Timo-Veikko Valve, cello Timo-Veikko Valve is one of the most versatile musicians of his generation performing on both modern and baroque instruments. Valve studied at the Sibelius Academy in his hometown Helsinki and at the Edsberg Music Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, focusing on solo performance and chamber music at both institutions.

Valve has performed as a soloist with all the major orchestras in Finland and as a chamber musician throughout Europe, Asia, Australia and the US. He has played world premiere performances of youth works by Jean Sibelius as well as works by contemporary composers, most recently concertos by Aulis Sallinen and Olli Virtaperko. Highlights in the 2012-13 season include the world premieres of two new cello concertos written for him

by Eero Hämeenniemi and Olli Koskelin.

In 2006 Valve was appointed Principal Cello of the Australian Chamber Orchestra with who he frequently appears as soloist. He is also a founding member of Jousia Ensemble and Jousia Quartet.

Valve’s instrument is attributed to both Giuseppe Guarneri (filius Andreæ) and Bartolomeo Giuseppe Guarneri (del Gesù) from 1729. www.timo-veikkovalve.fi

SEASON OVERVIEW 2013

Brahms / March 2013 Mozart / String Quartet in D major K499 Louis Andriessen / Facing Death Brahms / String Quartet in A minor op 51 no 2 Schubert / May-June 2013 Haydn / String Quartet op 64 no 5 Lark Bart贸k / String Quartet no 3 Schubert / String Quintet in C major D956 With guest artist Timo-Veikko Valve, cello

Debussy / September 2013 Mendelssohn / String Quartet in E minor op 44 no 2 Andrew Ford / String Quartet no 5 (new commission) Arvo P盲rt / Fratres Debussy / String Quartet in G minor op 10 Beethoven / November 2013 Schnittke / String Quartet no 3 Beethoven / String Quartet op 130 and Grosse Fuge

VENUES AND DATES

Adelaide / Adelaide Town Hall 7pm: Wed 6 Mar / Wed 5 Jun / Fri 6 Sep / Wed 20 Nov Brisbane / Conservatorium Theatre, South Bank 7pm: Tue 12 Mar / Tue 28 May / Mon 16 Sep / Mon 11 Nov Melbourne / Melbourne Recital Centre, Southbank 7pm: Wed 13 Mar / Mon 27 May / Wed 11 Sep / Wed 13 Nov Perth / Perth Concert Hall 7pm: Mon 18 Mar / Thu 30 May / Mon 9 Sep / Mon 18 Nov Sydney / City Recital Hall Angel Place 7pm: Fri 8 Mar / Tue 4 Jun / Tue 17 Sep / Tue 12 Nov Pre-concert talks will be held in all venues prior to the concert at 6.10pm

SUBSCRIBE AND SAVE Benefits Subscriptions available 6 September 2012 - early March 2013 Superior savings A savings of 20% off single ticket prices Bonus tickets Two bonus tickets to a National Season 2013 concert of your choice Free concert program A program voucher for each concert Priority seating Access to the best seats in the house prior to single tickets going on sale Ticket exchange Free ticket exchange to any city of your choice within National Season 2013 Lost ticket replacement No fees to replace your lost ticket

Single Tickets Available from 1 December 2012 Adelaide BASS: 131 246 / bass.net.au Adult $71.40 / Conc $52.70 Student $29.10 (transaction fee included) Brisbane QTIX: 136 246 / qtix.com.au Adult $70.80 / Conc $52.40 Student $29.00 (transaction fee included) Melbourne Melbourne Recital Centre: (03) 9699 3333 melbournerecital.com.au Adult $72.60 / Conc $53.10 Student $27.10 (transaction fee may apply) Perth BOCS: (08) 9484 1133 bocsticketing.com.au Adult $70.80 / Conc $54.55 Student $27.20 (transaction fees may apply) Sydney City Recital Hall Angel Place: 1300 797 118 cityrecitalhall.com Adult $73.50 / Conc $54.00 Student $27.30 (additional fees may apply to comply with statutory requirements) Student Rush $15.00 tickets are available one hour prior to concert start on presentation of a full-time student card

THE GIFT OF MUSIC The Australian String Quartet’s annual program of activity delivers world-class musical performances to audiences in Australia and abroad.

Through the generous support of our valued donors, we are privileged to be able to share our passion for musical excellence with diverse audiences ranging from international festivals, to regional and remote Australian communities, from the concert stage to intimate school performances and tertiary masterclasses.

In partnership with our donors, the ASQ proudly invests in the future of Australian music through our new work commissioning fund, which supports the ASQ to commission, premiere and showcase new Australian works both nationally and internationally.

With a commitment to young music consumers, the ASQ donates in excess of 100 student subscriptions annually through the generosity of our donors.

In 2013, the launch of our String Quartet Mentoring Program will provide further opportunities for music lovers to support the next generation of Australian music makers.

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