Back row: Andrew Thomson (viola), Alexander McFarlane (viola), Andrew Joyce (cello)
Front: Yuka Eguchi (violin), Donald Armstrong (violin)

It has been quite some time (2016 in fact) since our regular favourites the Amici Ensemble played a concert for strings only. It will probably be a welcome calming interlude for them after the huge resources – nineteen musicians on many varied instruments – that were required for 2023’s Brandenburg Concerto concert.

Two New Zealand compositions from different generations – Ronald Tremain’s 20th century String Trio and Salina Fisher’s 2017 ‘Yabo’ for violin and viola – will open this concert before we hear two of the greatest string quintets ever written.

The quintets in this concert are Viola Quintets, with an additional viola added to the standard string quartet combination. Mozart wrote a huge amount of music for strings, including six Viola Quintets. K515 is a late work in which he reached the peak of his chamber-music inspiration. The impressive String Quintet by Brahms is also a late work – he originally intended it to be his final composition. There is no doubt that this impressive masterpiece stands as a towering achievement by one of the greatest chamber music composers.

No musician is more popular in Waikanae than Michael Houstoun, so we are delighted to welcome him again with another of his appealing and well-crafted programmes.

The Fantasy and Fugue in G minor, one of the most magnificent of Bach’s organ works, will be heard here transcribed by Liszt for piano. Liszt, the leading musical figure of his generation, was very generous in transcribing and performing the works of other composers in order to promote their music, aiming to encourage appreciation and performance of music by composers who at that time were often under-appreciated. Liszt’s transcription is very faithful to Bach’s original, miraculously capturing the grandeur and richness of this magnificent work.

The programme continues with a selection of Liszt’s own works, displaying contrasted facets of this complex composer’s skill, ranging from the colourful and extroverted Concert Etudes to the deeply contemplative Bénédiction.

Chinese composer Gao Ping has very strong connections with New Zealand. His “Outside the Window”, a set of three short pieces, provides a charming interlude before we return to the music of the romantics with Chopin’s famous and very beautiful Sonata in B minor.