Category: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

The EMERSON STRING QUARTET. One of the world’s great string quartets. They must be heard live. I have their recording of the Shostakovich Quartets (2000), which may account for part of my love obsession around all of the music by Shostakovich. Included in Program One was a Shostakovich quartet scheduled – so, no brainer – I had to attend. The Emerson String Quartet, which took its name from the American poet and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson was formed in 1976, while they were studying at Juilliard. In 2013, the Quartet was reconfigured when cellist Paul Watkins joined the original members…

Australian Chamber Orchestra (ACO) present Brahms 3, Mozart Sinfonia Concertante, at the Sydney City Recital Hall, Angel Place, 18 Aug – 22 Aug. The Australian Chamber Orchestra (ACO) in its biggest formation this year, brought some 50 musicians onto the stage. The sound is full and electric. The concert began with an exuberantly passionate ‘reading’ of the Overture from the opera, THE MAGIC FLUTE, by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1791). The experience was surprising and arousing taken with a speed that had me hearing the work as if it were the first time. The dramatics of the scoring were delivered with…

AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA (ACO) in association with Bell Shakespeare presents INTIMATE LETTERS at the Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House. 24 August, Sydney Opera House, 26 – 30th August at City Recital Hall, Angel Place. The Australian Chamber orchestra (ACO) with Bell Shakespeare presented a program of music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Bedrich Smetana, and Leos Janacek, accompanied by the reading of some letters from the composers, which contextualised the writing of the compositions. The orchestra lead by Guest Director and Violin, Gordan Nikolic. Sixteen year old Mozart composed Divertimento in F major, K. 138 (1772). Composed, for four separate string…

Ken Unsworth Studio presents the Australian Quartet. I was invited to the Ken Unsworth Studio in Belmont St in Alexandria to attend the launching of a new configuration of the Australia Quartet. Belmont! Alexandria! With an applied imagination: two romantic titles, I think. And at the Ken Unsworth studio, he has created an intimate little performance space, and as I listened to this concert, caused me to reflect, to remember the soiree scenes in films like Visconti’s L’INNOCENTE and THE LEOPARD. If we were all dressed differently I could have believed I was in such a private space and listening…

Australian Chamber Orchestra (ACO) present the 2013 Concert Season: Mozart Clarinet Concerto. This was, as usual with the ACO, an interesting program of music. The orchestra led by Satu Vanska played a short work by the Finnish composer, Einojuhani Rautavaara: A Finnish Myth (1977); from Russian, Edison Denisov: Five Paganini Caprices: Caprice No. 9.(1985) and Swedish, Goran Frost’s: DTangled (2013). The Finnish work was modern in its sound, full of grating string affects – lack of harmonies – contrasted with a, relievedly, thematic pattern. The Caprice by Denisov was of easier appeal and had enough echoes of the Paganini inspiration…