Schubert, String Quartet no.10 in E flat D.87
James Ledger, Processions and Transitions
Dvořák, Cypresses
Dvořák, String Quartet no.12 in F Major op.96 American
*World Premiere
Schubert’s early E flat quartet opens a program evoking fresh hopes and cherished memories. One can imagine the Schubert family quartet sitting down to play this work in their lamplit apartment in Vienna, one of the spiritual homelands of the string quartet. Dvořák ’s Cypresses is the reworking for quartet of a romantic early song cycle. In these pieces, the composer seems to be looking back with affection at the feelings of his youth. In the American quartet, written during a summer holiday in the rich farming country of Spillville, Iowa, Dvořák looks outwards with appreciative eyes at a foreign but friendly land. A new commission by brilliant Western Australian composer James Ledger explores the experience of immigrants, what they gave up leaving their homelands and what they had to look forward to in their new lives.