Zoe Knighton welcomes the audience to the Montsalvat Barn Gallery, saying it feels like home to her now, as the Quartet has played there more often than anywhere else. 

The program opens with a sensational performance of an early Beethoven quartet (Op. 18, No, 4). With meticulous attention to detail, the Quartet accentuates the score’s latent energy: the first movement’s powerful momentum, the middle movement’s lively grace, and the frenetic hurtling race to the end of the final movement. 

From Silence & Snow includes two works that recognise the Quartet’s personal connections with Jean Sibelius and Olli Mustonen. The Quartet has performed all Sibelius’ string quartets in a Finnish festival and played in the composer’s home. The Quartet co-commissioned Mustonen’s second string quartet after connecting with the brilliant Finnish composer, pianist and conductor during his Australian tours. 

Flinders Quartet. Photo © Agatha Yim

This complex work demands more than one hearing, but a first impression from its Southern Hemisphere premiere is the novel way Mustonen uses dissonance. In the first movement, Allegro misterioso, a consistently syncopated rhythm simultaneously creates and undermines the  pulse, producing a sense of unease...