After this, Robert Davidson’s Minjerribah worked better, Barton’s contribution lending a welcome acerbity to this composer’s much more conventional idiom.
Far more successful was Andrew Ford’s String Quartet No. 7: Eden Ablaze, a chilling commentary on the horrific bush fires of 2019-2020. Barton created an ominous backdrop before a string was bowed, rejoining the Brodskys after their eerie workout on Handel’s big “tree” aria — Ombra ma fu.
A bicultural coup made for a perfect finale. First came a heartrending Irish folksong, She Moved Through the Fair, with violist Paul Cassidy as the winning troubadour, as was Elvis Costello on the quartet’s original recording.
Barton then entered from the back of the hall, striding, singing and playing his own Square Circles Beneath the Red Desert Sand — a work that achieved his desire to capture the mysterious Australian landscape using a Western classical ensemble.
By themselves, the quartet thrilled with Stravinsky’s three tasty miniatures of 1914-22, and some outstanding Janacek — the Czech composer’s Intimate Letters Quartet. Their full-bodied depth of sound never failed them, with every quirky rhythmic turn, shift of texture and sound infallibly caught. The show also benefited from Cassidy’s eloquent all-important viola.
Selina Fisher’s Tōrino crossed home-grown cultural barriers, the strings evoking the pūtōrino, a Māori flute with trumpeting capabilities. The first time I heard this lovely score, I felt we were being taken into an enchanted sonic forest to replenish our souls under a canopy of birdsong. On Friday night, it happened once again.
