Lynne Lancaster

AUSTRALIAN HAYDN ENSEMBLE IN HAYDN’S SUN AND MENDELLSOHN’S STARS

Streamed live from Wesley Music Centre, Forrest/Ngunnawal Country by the Australian Digital Concert Hall.

This delightful concert was full of glorious, luxurious music as performed by the Haydn Ensemble .It was multi  textured and layered , full of intensity. There was great rapport between the quartet of performers. The various members of the Ensemble’s string quartet – Skye McIntosh and Matthew Greco (violins), Karina Schmitz (viola) and Daniel Yeadon (cello) – play instruments made in the late 1700s, the period in which the music was composed.

The concert was presented in chronological order and began with Bach’s fugues I-IV from The Art of Fugue, illustrating the use of counterpoint and how Bach takes a theme and embroiders it intricately and imaginatively, with a density of rhythm and repeated melody that sometimes ripples and bubbles at other times is far more pensive .It is interesting to know that JS Bach wrote The Art of the Fugue in the early 1740s, plagued by ill health and aged in his mid-50s . It is rather bouncy, with some melancholy sections, yet sinuously symmetrical , in some ways bridging the gap between the Baroque and Romanticism. The finale is a meticulous three part fugue including circular inversions.  

Then we heard Haydn’s String Quartet in A Major Op. 20 No. 6 (aka the Sun Quartets). The Ensemble shone in this exuberant work, showing energetic mastery and variation, with harmony and synthesis.

The Mendelssohn is eloquent, passionate and melancholy at first .Pizzicato is used in one section making the music sound spiky. At other times the music is pensive, contrasted at times with brisk scurrying, or quivering strings, or animated circular ensemble discussion in interweaving rhythmic patterns.We hear how counterpoint and fugue are intrinsic to the work .It is intense at times with adroit playing and there are highly emotional convoluted sections . A highlight would have to be the third movement Intermezzo.

A compelling concert.

Haydn – String Quartet in A Major Op. 20 No. 6 (Sun Quartets)

JS Bach – Selections from The Art of Fugue

Mendelssohn – String Quartet in A minor Op. 13

Artists:

Australian Haydn Ensemble String Quartet

Skye McIntosh – Violin

Matthew Greco – Violin

Karina Schmitz – Viola

Daniel Yeadon – Cello

https://australiandigitalconcerthall.com/#/item/100968

https://www.australianhaydn.com.au/events/haydns-sun-mendelssohns-stars

RUNNING TIME allow 100 minutes including interval

This performance toured – 10-19 February

  • Friday, 10 February 20237:00 pm
    Sunday, 19 February 20235:00 pm
  • Armidale, Canberra, Australian Digital Concert Hall, Berry, Southern Highlands, Sydney Opera House

Featured image : Haydn’s Sun & Mendelsohn’s Stars. Australian Haydn Ensemble. Photo by Peter Hislop.