The New Zealand String Quartet is bringing their ‘Classically Yours’ programme to Whanganui.
The performance will be the first of Chamber Music Whanganui’s 2023 subscription series. Classically Yours features quartets from the height of the classical era by Mozart and Schubert alongside Shostakovich’s neo-classical first quartet.
There will also be a special offering for Whanganui of short duos for two violins by Whanganui-born composer, Douglas Lilburn.
The Schubert quartet is best known by its nickname, the Rosamunde Quartet. It features the well-loved themes of his incidental music for Rosamunde. To balance the Mozart and Schubert quartets is Shostakovich’s first quartet in C major, Op. 49, which was composed during the summer of 1938.
Shostakovich said that in this quartet he had visualised childhood scenes, somewhat naïve and bright moods associated with spring - a complete contrast to the darker, more intensely brooding moods associated with the composer’s later works.
