Christopher's Classics: Aroha Quartet with Andrew Joyce

Programme - “Sunrise, Schubert and Beyond”:

F.J. Haydn – String Quartet in B Flat, Op.76 No.4 ‘Sunrise’
Peter Tornyai – String Quintet
F. Schubert – Cello Quintet in C, Op. 163 (D. 956)

The Aroha String Quartet and Andrew Joyce present a programme which combines one of the best-loved chamber music works with a brand new companion piece especially written for the Quartet.

Andrew Joyce studied at the Purcell School and at the Royal College of Music. He has performed all over the world with the London Symphony & London Philharmonic Orchestras and has been Guest Principal with Northern Sinfonia, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. He was recently appointed Principal Cellist with the NZSO.

The Aroha String Quartet was founded in 2004. Haihong Liu (first violin), Beiyi Xue (second violin) and Robert Ibell (cello) are members of the NZSO while the violist Zhongxian Jin enjoys a varied career as a teacher and free-lance musician. The quartet has toured extensively throughout New Zealand. In November 2011 they appeared at the Huntington Estate Music Festival in N.S.W., Australia.

Haydn’s String Quartet Op. 76 No.4, one of his finest, is nicknamed the Sunrise because the first violin initially rises like the sun above chords played by the rest of the quartet.

The single movement String Quintet by Hungarian composer Peter Tornyai was written for the Aroha Quartet in 2010. The Quartet gave the premiere on a railway platform amongst steam engines! The work begins where the Schubert Quintet finishes and while it contains quotations from Schubert, its extensive use of retuning and harmonics creates a very different sound world, with fascinating, ear-catching textures and sonorities.

Schubert’s Cello Quintet in C, Op.163, touches listeners in a deeply spiritual and personal way, a masterpiece of utmost beauty which many consider the greatest chamber music work ever written.