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It is listed in our catalogue because an event featuring a performance of this work was included in our calendar of Australian music. Details of this performance are listed below.
Work Overview
I've always found it interesting to come in on radio broadcasts
without knowing who's playing and quite possibly not even knowing
what piece of music is being played. It's perhaps the most
objective listening experience still available to us in a world
of multiple instant-access listening platforms boasting 'every
recording ever made', and the constant and often overbearing
(self-)promotion of social media.
I'll never forget, back in 2007, tuning in by chance to a
broadcast on ABC, live from the Melbourne International Chamber
Music Competition, of my first string quartet, Eclipse.
I'd heard a rumour that one or two groups had taken on this piece
as part of their repertoire that year. I'd missed the beginning
of the performance, but as I listened, I became increasingly
aware that this was one of the finest and most insightful
interpretations of a piece of mine that I'd ever heard, and from
players I'd never even met. I simply had to listen till the end
to find out which group was playing: the Doric String Quartet
from the UK. Since then the Dorics and I have become close
friends and regular chamber music partners, having performed and
recorded together numerous times over the past ten years.
This new quartet represents my first opportunity to write a work
specifically for them. The artists were going to tour for Musica
Viva Australia in June 2019, including performances at the
Melbourne Recital Centre, which would celebrate its tenth
anniversary in that year. There was interest in commissioning a
new piece to mark the occasion. (MVA would soon be joined by
philanthropist Ulrike Klein AO, as well as other presenters from
around the world).
It's my third string quartet and is subtitled 'Hidden Agendas'.
As that title implies, it isn't wanting to paint too explicit or
illustrative a picture. However with individual movement titles
such as Hubris, Self-censorship and
On-message, it's fair to say that this piece - with its
five partially connected movements exhibiting strong extremes of
energy, dynamics and expression - is a somewhat oblique, abstract
look at certain aspects of the strangely fascinating and
invariably unsettling political climate of extreme personalities,
Twitter-outrage, group-think and other challenges to the
democratic process in which we seem to find ourselves as we enter
the 2020s.
The music ranges from highly combustible and physical, through
vividly virtuosic, to plaintively searching and intimate: even at
times barely audible, including the whispery use of bows without
rosin in movement IV. In the process, the quartet moves from
unified huddle to one of increasingly splintered loyalties and
go-it-alone statements. However the quartet ultimately finds
itself herded back into some form of agreement by the end of the
work, willingly or otherwise.
Above all, I hope it provides the listener with an interesting,
possibly even thought-provoking way of spending 20 minutes of
their time.
© Brett Dean 2019
Work Details
Year: 2019
Instrumentation: 2 violins, viola, cello.
Duration: 20 min.
Difficulty: Advanced
Contents note: I Hubris -- II Response -- III Retreat -- IV Self-censorship -- V ‘On-message’.
First performance: by Doric String Quartet at Doric String Quartet (Perth Concert Hall) on 9 Jun 2019
Commissioned through Musica Viva Australia in celebration of the Melbourne Recital Centre’s 10th anniversary with support from Ulrike Klein AO, Edinburgh International Festival, Konzerthaus Berlin, Stichting Strijkkwartet Biënnale Amsterdam, Carnegie Hall, and West Cork Chamber Music Festival.
Performances of this work
22 Jun 2019: at Doric String Quartet (City Recital Hall). Featuring Doric String Quartet.
20 Jun 2019: at Doric String Quartet (Newcastle Conservatorium Concert Hall). Featuring Doric String Quartet.
18 Jun 2019: at Doric String Quartet (Hobart Town Hall). Featuring Doric String Quartet.
15 Jun 2019: at Doric String Quartet (Melbourne Recital Centre, Elisabeth Murdoch Hall). Featuring Doric String Quartet.
13 Jun 2019: at Doric String Quartet (Adelaide Town Hall). Featuring Doric String Quartet.
11 Jun 2019: at Doric String Quartet (Melbourne Recital Centre, Elisabeth Murdoch Hall). Featuring Doric String Quartet.
9 Jun 2019: at Doric String Quartet (Perth Concert Hall). Featuring Doric String Quartet.
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