Wolfgang Mozart – Quintet for Piano and Winds in E-flat major, K452 – Robert Orr (oboe), Jim Campbell (clarinet), Shadley van Wyck (horn), Todd Gibson-Cornish (bassoon), Michael Endres (piano)
Liam Furey (Emerging Composer-in-Residence) – … limbic evolution … for string quartet and cellulare obbligato (Adam Chamber Music Festival commission) – New Zealand String Quartet
Ralph Vaughan Williams – On Wenlock Edge – Colin Ainsworth (tenor), Michael Endres (piano), New Zealand String Quartet
This richly varied programme brings together three strikingly different sound worlds. Mozart’s radiant Quintet for Piano and Winds, written to impress and hopefully solicit commissions from a local prince, showcases the elegance and wit of late Mozart in a work the composer himself called one of his best.
New Zealand composer Liam Furey describes his festival commission, Limbic Evolution, as “a mixture of modern-day commentary with an unconventional form of virtuosity and some theatricality, where each player is assigned a mobile phone with a timer set…”. We’ll have to wait and see what unfolds.
The concert concludes with the first of the festival’s celebrated English song cycles, Ralph Vaughan Williams’ poignant On Wenlock Edge, using evocative poetry from A.E. Housman’s A Shropshire Lad. Vaughan Williams’ influences of both English folksong and his recent studies with Ravel are evidenced in this haunting musical drama, with its modalism, expert word-painting and exquisite colouristic effects.
