Flinders Quartet

THURSDAY 3 NOVEMBER
1:30 PM - 3:30 PM

Thibaud Pavlovic-Hobba: violin
Wilma Smith: violin
Helen Ireland: viola
Zoe Knighton: cello

Flinders Quartet’s final program of the 2022 season pairs together two seminal string quartets by Beethoven with five miniatures by emerging Australian composers and past participants of the FQ Composer Development Program.

“Beethoven: the standard of greatness against which all composers since have measured themselves. For any quartet player, coming back to Beethoven is always therapeutic, a spiritually nourishing and technically strengthening homecoming,” says Wilma Smith, a violinist of Flinders Quartet.

The program will open with an early Beethoven quartet Op.18, and end with the iconic Grosse Fugue, which Smith describes as “iconic and fearsome” for its “scale, drama, complexity and unrelenting, uncompromising intensity - and it’s just as intense for the audience as it is for the performers.”

“No composer wrote more profoundly or radically for the string quartet than Beethoven, affecting and influencing every composer since. Between one of his earliest quartets, the sunny Op.18 No.1, and one of his latest, the forever contemporary Great Fugue Op.133, Flinders Quartet present five miniatures commissioned by them from five young female composers whose challenging brief was to write a two-minute response to the monumental Fugue of Beethoven’s.“ - Wilma Smith

“What’s really special about this program, though, is the opportunity we’ve given to five young composers to explore the Grosse Fugue and respond to it in their own way with tiny miniatures, the exact opposite of the colossus before them. I’m intrigued to see what they come up with,” says Smith.

The Grosse Fugue is seen by some as an unapproachable composition, but Flinders Quartet will be pairing it with five short works by Australian composers to present a new way of listening to this vital work with fresh insights. Flinders Quartet’s mission is to carry on the strong tradition of the string quartet in 21st century Australia so future generations can have an idea of Australia’s culture through the music created at the time. The commissioning of five emerging composers to write vignettes in response to Beethoven’s Grosse Fugue creates contemporary relevance for this seminal work and ensures that the generations to come have an awareness of Beethoven’s string quartet canon.

Flinders Quartet have worked with five emerging Australian composers (Natalie Nicolas, Naomi Brown, Claire Higgins, Clare Strong and Claire Farrell) to develop their compositions. The composers were tasked with taking a motif or element found in the Grosse Fugue as inspiration to develop their own miniatures.

“Not one of the vignettes sounds like Beethoven but it is extremely exciting that this great master is effectively still teaching and inspiring composers in 21st century Australia.” says Zoe Knighton, cellist of Flinders Quartet.

Recital followed by Afternoon Tea

Concession $50
Full Price $55