Ah, those summer nights in Eastern Europe, 1812.

A week after Napoleon invades Russia, Ludwig van Beethoven almost certainly says “Yes,
tonight Josephine” to the love of his life, the unhappily married and recently jilted but
socially impossible match, Countess Jozefina Brunszvik. Three days later he pours forth – with
the pencil (!) he souvenired from the tryst – the 10 little pages of hopeless devotion that have spawned thousands of pages of academic speculation. He hastily concludes in order to make the next post, then scrunches them in his pocket for the rest of his life.

This superb program revolves around the tantalizing enigma of the “Immortal Beloved” letters. Young Sydney composer Ella Macens, whose tender and expressive work with the Goldner and Flinders quartets has demonstrated a special affinity with chamber strings, embraces baroque tuning with a new commission inspired by Ludwig’s passionate declarations.