AUSTRALIAN STRING QUARTET 2010.

FLIGHT
Haydn - String quartet op.33 no.3 The Bird
Paul Stanhope - String quartet no.1
Brahms - Piano Quintet in f minor op.34
with Lucinda Collins - Piano

Our season begins with the sparkling clarity of Haydn's The Bird followed by the atmospheric first quartet of one of Australia's most exciting composers, Paul Stanhope. We feature the superb musicianship of pianist Lucinda Collins in a performance of Brahm's turbulent Piano Quintet, a work that the composer revised several times before forging its final darkly brilliant form.

To make a Carbon Credit Donation and help manage the Adelaide Festival's carbon footprint, click here

SONGS OF TRAVEL - GALA CONCERT
Barber - String Quartet op.11
Vaughan Williams - Songs of Travel - arr. Quentin Grant for String Quartet & Baritone
Mendelssohn - String Quartet in E flat major op.12
Barber - Dover Beach for Baritone & String Quartet op.3
with Teddy Tahu Rhodes - Baritone

Internationally acclaimed baritone Teddy Tahu Rhodes joins us to become the vagabond wayfarer of Vaughan Williams' Songs of Travel and to perform Samuel Barber's sumptuous setting of Dover Beach, a sombre meditation on life's eternal note of sadness. We stay with Barber to present his celebrated Adagio in its original context as the profound centre of his op.11 Quartet. The passionate lyricism of the 19 year old Mendelssohn is the perfect close to a programme with a distinctly romantic spirit.

UNITY
Beethoven - String Quartet in B flat major op.18 no.6
Peter Sculthorpe - String Quartet no.6
Dvorak - String Quartet in A flat major no.14 op.105

We open this programme with the robust playfulness of Beethoven's op.18 no.6, with its famous la malinconia - the melancholy, the delicately tender introduction to the finale. Peter Sculthorpe's extraordinary 6th string quartet expresses a more searing melancholy, while Dvorak's A flat quartet, one of his last, seems to brim with joy and thanksgiving for a life well lived.