Thank You Flinders Quartet

On Friday night, the Flinders Quartet with guest violin Miki Tsunoda, gave a beautifully balanced performance that brought fresh perspectives to the distinct technical and emotional character of three familiar and much loved works.

The programme began with an elegantly restrained performance of Mozart's string quartet K 464. The work is familiar but the Flinders quartet playing – considered, unadorned and pure – brought an almost modern sensibility to the work. Mozart is timeless.

Their second work was a set of four well-known Mendelssohn leider for voice and piano arranged by John Rotar for string quartet. The arrangements and the performance were vibrant; you could sense the Quartet’s enjoyment in the Romantic lushness and sweeping flow of the arrangements. In particular, in “the Witches song”, Zoe Knighton’s cello as the witches’ “voice” led the frantic dance of the devil with energetic rhythms and earthy timbres; her bad girl cello was irresistible!

The programme closed with Beethoven’s last string quartet, op 135, a work that is by turns, bright, exuberant, serious, funny, tender, majestic. It was a performance a performance that brought out all the complexity of the work. Although quite familiar with the work, I found myself so engaged with every moment of the Flinders Quartet performance that each change of mood came as a genuine surprise. It was like hearing the work for the first time.

A nice moment in the concert came when Helen Ireland, talking about the ensemble’s fondness for Mozart, told the story of a rehearsal that was going very badly, until the group started playing a Mozart work. Harmony and calm returned. The group's then 1st violin Shane Chen declared “Mozart fixes everything!”

These are our favourite photos from the quartet's pre-concert rehearsal.

Flinders Quartet 2018