In his review of From Russia with Love at the Australian Festival of Chamber Music in Townsville, Clive Paget described the Orava Quartet as “the most exciting young quartet on the block” – and hearing them perform several times over the course of the AFCM’s final weekend, it’s not hard to see why.
Joined by cellist Francis Gouton, they took to Schubert’s D956 Quintet in C Major on Day 8 like trouts to water, bringing colour, focus and loads of energy to the mammoth work that spans almost an hour. The addition of an extra cello – rather than a viola – to make up the quintet’s numbers gives Schubert’s final piece of chamber music extra heft in the low register, with Gouton adding his honeyed tone to that of cellist Karol Kowalik, while first violinist Daniel Kowalik shimmered over David Dalseno’s scurrying second part. The first movement saw duets traded between Karol Kowalik and violist Thomas Chawner on the one side and Daniel Kowalik and Dalseno on the other, Gouton caught in the middle, roaring with full-bodied sound before the movement’s ultimately tranquil ending.
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