Australian Music Centre | Breaking sound barriers

Event Details

The word bucolic is sometimes taken beyond its simple reference to pastoral genres to seem to promise earthy good fellowship and a preference for vigour over subtlety. To some extent that additional meaning is appropriate to the character of the Wind Quintet of Carl Nielsen, who was brought up in a Danish rural community and who understood country life better than most people. If bucolic is meant to be a not-so-subtle putdown, however, its use needs to be balanced by an understanding of the high stature of Nielsen as a musical poet.

Ian Munro’s second String Quartet, subtitled A Colonial Sketchbook, is a work in which this deftly allusive composer and outstanding pianist typically looks at relatively bucolic societies of the past with a mixture of historical sympathy and discerning nostalgia.

Eugene Goossens adds unmistakably sophisticated French touches to his sketch of pastoral theatre and improvised Italian comedy.

Brahms, a lord of majestic and powerful gesture, is also utterly as at home with a pastoral reverie, demonstrating all of these capacities with remarkable succinctness in his C minor Piano Trio.

Australia Ensemble @UNSW: Ian Munro - Piano, Cathy McCorkill - Clarinet, Geoffrey Collins - Flute, Dene Olding - Violin, Dimity Hall - Violin, Irina Morozova - Viola, Julian Smiles - Cello, Plus guest artists: Jeff Crelin - Oboe, Robert Johnson - Horn, Andrew Barnes - Bassoon

Featured non-Australian music: NIELSEN, Wind Quintet op. 43; BRAHMS, Piano Trio No. 3 in C minor op. 101

Further information for this event is available online at the event's website or by phone on +61 2 9385 4874 or by email to australia.ensemble@unsw.edu.au

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• Performer Australia Ensemble