Cellist Rolf Gjelsten with the NZSQ Photo: supplied
The beautiful kauri wood Church of the Holy Trinity in Devonport is the venue for a programme featuring the music of Haydn, Farr, Ligeti and Dvorak.
This Haydn quartet is a natural starter for a concert – it’s nicknamed ‘Sunrise’ after its glowing and welcoming opening theme. But it was not Haydn's choice as a desription. In fact, the programme notes for the concert mention that this particular sun rises six times in the space of one short movement, as well as going down twice.
Te Kōanga translates as “Spring” or “Planting Season”. Gareth Farr wrote the work in memory of the Wellington luthier Ian Lyons, who died unexpectedly in 2015.
Farr says: "In addition to his passion for music, Ian was passionate about nature and the outdoors and spent much time observing and experiencing the beautiful and rich environment that Wellington boasts. This piece is not a lament for Ian – rather, it is a joyous celebration of the things that were most important to him."
Hungarian György Ligeti in the 1950s was a young composer with avant garde proclivities. However the Stalinist regime at the time stifled any works that didn't conform to a populist approach. In addition, this meant that Ligeti would hardly have been able to hear works by older avant garde writers such as Schoenberg, Webern, or Messiaen. Even fellow Hungarian Bartók's music was censored.
Ligeti had great talent and was able to produce a number of works that conformed to the acceptable style. But he also wrote several works that were stashed away without any hope that they would ever be heard. The First String Quartet is one of these. It was influenced by his reading of the score of Alban Berg's 'Lyric Suite'.
The work is a single movement with eight sections. The word 'Métamorphoses' in the title "signifies a set of character variations without an actual theme but developed out of a basic motivic idea."
Dvóřak’s breakthrough work – gaining him an international reputation – was his first set of Slavonic Dances, which he composed in 1878 at the age of 37. In the wake of that, Jean Becker, the leader of the Florentine Quartet asked Dvóřak for a string quartet which would similarly evoke feelings of Bohemia with an emphasis on folk-like melodies and traditional Czech dances.
The first movement uses the charactistics of a polka, the second is a darker Dumka and the finale is based on the quick dance style, the Skočná. In the third movement titled “Romanza”, the dance band takes a break and we have an impassioned song of longing.
Recorded by RNZ Concert
Producer: Tim Dodd
Engineer: Adrian Hollay
