From the Artistic Chair

When Joseph Haydn began writing string quartets and symphonies these were modest categories of works, limited in scope and ambition. By the time he ended his career he was largely responsible for ensuring that they had become the dominant genres of chamber and concert-hall music. In the two centuries since his death, signalled by a bicentenary in 2009, Haydn’s reputation has never faltered with knowledgeable listeners, yet his very clarity of texture and economy of method have caused him to be relatively undervalued in times of extravagant musical dimensions and durations. The Australia Ensemble is happy to be able to mark the Haydn bicentenary in 2009 with two works of the highest quality: an eloquent and memorable string quartet (one of the last two such works he completed) and a brilliant piano trio from the great harvest of his late works when this formerly salaried staff musician discovered to his astonishment that the musical world was at his feet.

The Australia Ensemble is equally happy to be able to salute the genius of Felix Mendelssohn in the 200th anniversary of his birth in 2009 with a program centred on his magnificent regime in Leipzig, where his work as composer, pianist, educator and music director gave that city a prestige it retained until well after the end of the nineteenth century. His string octet and many other well-known works will rightly receive much attention in his bicentenary year, but we take pleasure in drawing particular attention to the high merits and representative style of his B minor Piano Quartet, an amazing and little-known score he wrote when he was not quite sixteen.

In one of our six Saturday night programs we take a look at some of the ways in which American music discovered its special aptitudes for the concert hall (with a little help from such sympathetic visitors as Antonín Dvořák) and deliberately explore the contrasts, in another, between music of revelry and music of reverie. Mostly, however, we allow the pieces chosen for performance to make their own statements of affinity and difference. Recent music includes Brett Dean’s Winter Songs cycle, in which this composing Queenslander comes to terms with the climate he encountered in Berlin as a member of the Berlin Philharmonic; commissioned scores from Paul Stanhope and the Ensemble’s resident pianist-composer Ian Munro; and a major new piece by Steve Reich. Balancing these novelties are such mainstays of the concert repertory as Beethoven’s popular Septet, his masterly E minor Rasumovsky String Quartet, and Brahms’s superb Trio for horn, violin and piano.

Join our responsive and friendly audience, drawn by the playing of this country’s finest chamber ensemble, and discover, or rediscover, how subscribing to the series is a lasting investment in the delight of discovery.

“a rare and satisfying trip outside of the comfort zone.” Harriet Cunningham, SMH Aug 07

“spirited, gutsy performance” Peter McCallum, SMH April 08

“The careful phrasing, well-pointed balance and tonal smoothness and richness were a delight…” Peter McCallum, SMH April 08


All Saturday evening concerts commence at 8pm. The venue is the Sir John Clancy Auditorium, UNSW.