Australia Piano Quartet – Works by Wagner, Gyger and Faure

Australia Piano Quartet constantly seeks to broaden the piano quartet repertoire by both commissioning new works and making arrangements.

This performance will unveil a striking new arrangement of Wagner’s prelude and Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde, as arranged by Bernard Rofe. The lush solistic qualites of the piano quartet allow Wagner’s expressive vision to find new romance before a dramatic change of gear occurs through the world premiere of Melbourne composer Elliott Gyger’s Shell Chambers.  This extraordinarily cerebral work was commission by APQ in 2015, and pushes the ensemble to the precipice of virtuosic possibility.

Bringing APQ’s 2016 season to a close, Faure’s sublime Piano Quartet in C minor is a beloved classic of the literature.  Written in the final stages of his brief marriage to the soprano Pauline Viardot – a muse to Berlioz, Liszt, Saint-Saens and Chopin amongst others – this luscious romantic masterpiece draws inspiration from Brahms while presenting its own impassioned French sensibility.