Townsville Civic Theatre
August 5, 2016

The concept for the Evening Series concert on the ninth day of the Australian Festival of Chamber Music began with two works: Shostakovich’s Seven Romances on Poems by Alexander Blok and the first of Beethoven’s late quartets, the String Quartet No 12 – both works their composer’s 127th opus. From this core, the idea was expanded to include opus 127s by Schubert and Schumann, whose Last Waltzes and Fünf Lieder und Gesänge respectively formed a lighter introduction to the concert.

Schubert’s 20 Waltzes – titled Last Waltzes by publishers following the composer’s death – were performed by five pianists (Finghin Collins, Andrew West, Sa Chen, Timothy Young, and the festival’s Artistic Director Piers Lane). Four pianists sat flanking the stage, swapping every few waltzes in a Schubertian game of musical chairs. Collins attacked his waltzes with boisterous weight, while West’s dramatic left-hand runs tore up the piano. Chen found smooth, subtle shapes, while Young executed crisp turns and Lane capped off the performances with a cheeky lightness.

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