KEY POINTS:
It was a night in Vienna with a difference. For the last concert of its New Zealand tour, the Australian String Quartet coupled Schubert and Alban Berg in a superb demonstration of chamber music at its most eloquent.
Schubert's Quartettsatz offered eight minutes of propulsive energy, with searing tremolo chords. It was the finely pitched dialogue between Sophie Rowell's first violin and Rachel Johnston's cello that seemed to define this responsive ensemble.
Wafting chords from violins and viola were perfection as Schubert's chromatic eddies gently spiralled around the group.
It was the perfect launch for Berg's Lyric Suite, which Rowell introduced succinctly and wittily, with lines like "I know this is atonal but ... " In fact, she revealed this was 12-tone music, as her colleagues offered samples of what was to come.
As it turned out, there was little here that would shock those who relate to Richard Strauss at his most harmonically saturated; a few luscious bars of the Andante amoroso even projected an almost bluesy ambience.
Rowell's violin moved effortlessly above the ensemble as a series of soundworlds was evoked, from the nervy mysteries of the third movement to the deep sorrows of the sixth.
Each player contributed mightily to this Finale and, among the many short solos that burst forth, a sobbing theme from second violinist Anne Horton caught the depths of Berg's "dull, icy night of separation, complete hopelessness, renunciation and despair".
The four women had the measure of Schubert's Death and the Maiden Quartet from the start, its all-important rests registering as vividly as the sounds around them. Once again, Rowell's violin floated lithely above.
The celebrated variations of the second movement came in long exquisitely spun phrases, registering as part of an organic narrative; and, if the Scherzo seemed a little flustered in its first appearance, serenity ruled in the subtle phrases of its Trio.
The Finale was brilliantly dispensed, despite taxing unison work that would test the mettle of the best players on the circuit. The concert ended sans encore and, after such a deeply satisfying evening, more would have been superfluous.
