A timely reminder of hope
Sydney Morning Herald
Monday October 26, 2009
AUSTRALIAN STRING QUARTETCity Recital Hall, October 23AUSTRALIA ENSEMBLEClancy Auditorium, UNSW, October 24BRETT DEAN'S Eclipse for string quartet was written at the time of the Tampa "crisis" and its title refers to the way the humanity of the boat people was eclipsed by political posturing and power games.The Australian String Quartet may have hoped to focus on its musical interest though it could scarcely have been more relevant to the preceding political week.Dean's sound-world starts by emphasising slow evolving patterns from the lower strings which fray at the edges as the pitch rises to a point of iridescence, like the vanishing point of the sun. It is a vivid aural symbol of the intensity of despair and hope that drives desperate action, leading to a more vigorous and spiky central section, Unlikely Flight, and a calmer unresolved close.In what is becoming a signature element of his style, Dean combines an exploration of sound with a European sense of phrasing and expression. The Australian String Quartet captured the work's intensity and complexity with commitment and fine concentration.Dean joined the quartet after the interval as extra viola player in Bruckner's String Quintet in F major. His capacity to project and shape phrases glowed through the ensemble, though the performance did not quite achieve the epic time scale and pace that Bruckner wrote into the work. Beethoven's Quartet in G, Opus 18, No.2, started gracefully, though stylish precision was not sustained throughout.Paul Stanhope's Light and Motion Studies, which received a premiere performance from the Australia Ensemble the following night in the concluding concert of their 30th subscription season, also uses metaphors of light, notably in its second (and final) movement, Phosphorescent.This was low-voltage phosphorescence, with gentle piano arpeggios in nocturnal mood, building to a climax of sentimental force. The first movement was a cheerful hoe-down in irregular rhythms. Those rhythms served as a warm-up for Steve Reich's Pulitzer Prize-winning Double Sextet (2007), an extended work that mixes Reich's trademark minimalist style, based on hypnotic repeated patterns, with subtle contrast, evolution and architecture.
© 2009 Sydney Morning Herald