Whenever I attend a concert in WA Museum Boola Bardip’s Hackett Hall, my eyes are always drawn up towards the leviathan memento mori, in the shape of a 24-metre blue whale skeleton, suspended above the audience.

My ears, of course, are drawn towards the music – in this case, the title work, Australian composer Elizabeth Younan’s String Quartet No. 1, Interwoven (2016-18, revised 2019); Haydn’s String Quartet in A major, Op.20 No.6 (1772); Prokofiev: String Quartet No. 2 in F major, Op. 92 (1941); and Éric Mouret’s arrangement of Clara Schumann’s solo piano work, Variations on a Theme by Robert Schumann, Op. 39 (1853).

As Younan writes, “At the heart of my compositional practice is the concept of organicism, where small musical ideas – called motives – are developed and transformed throughout the piece … Each change serves to push the music forward and maintain a sense of unity while creating contrast and excitement.”

Australian String Quartet: Interwoven. Photo © Kane Moroney

True to her word, Younan takes her motif – the listener’s proxy – on a three-movement journey through rolling homophonic and contrapuntal soundscapes of extraordinary tonal and rhythmic dynamism. The...