The New Zealand String Quartet have so much creative energy and continue to produce challenging programmes of classical music.
This year is the 200th anniversary of Robert Schumann, the passionate Romantic 19th century composer. His three quartets were all written within five weeks and given to his wife, Clara, for her 23rd birthday.
Schumann was bipolar. His [...]
Archive for August, 2010
Masterly quartet provokes emotional discord
Quartets by Schumann and Shostakovich make an inspiring and timely connection
Last weekend the New Zealand String Quartet coupled the music of Schumann and Shostakovich under the provocative banner of “Romance, Passion, Politics”.
It was a good pairing and timely, too, to be reminded of the stature of Schumann’s Opus 41 Quartets in his bicentenary year. How effortlessly the NZSQ took the dreamy opening of the German [...]
Quartet performs with astonishing concentration
The New Zealand String Quartet is in the middle of touring two highly demanding programmes devoted to the three string quartets Schumann composed in 1842 and four of Shostakovich’s 15 string quartets.
This concert was programme one, featuring the third Schumann and the harrowing Shostakovich quartets, 5 and 9.
Sensibly, the quartet opened with the A major [...]
Intensity and passion in an impressive performance
The New Zealand String Quartet – violinists Helene Pohl and Douglas Beilman, violist Gillian Ansell and cellist Rolf Gjelsten – were back in a favoured venue [Tom McDonald Cellar, Church Road Winery] with a programme celebrating the 200th anniversary of the birth of arch Romantic composer Robert Schumann, contrasting his music with that of intensely [...]
