In the fitting brutalist architecture of Canberra’s High Court building, the Flinders Quartet paired with Finnish pianist Paavali Jumppanen (currently Artistic Director of the Australian National Academy of Music) in a daring performance of music conceived under the authoritarian spotlight of the Soviet Union at war in 1940 (then allied Germany) and post-war Poland of 1952.

Quintessence: Paavali Jumppanen and the Flinders Quartet. Photo © Peter Hislop

The quintet began with Dmitri Shostakovich’s Piano Quintet in G minor with Jumppanen performing a dramatic and impassioned opening of the Prelude, with the strings joining in traded solos beginning with viola, then violin, then cello accompanied by the piano, left hand dominant.

Already the piece’s seditious characteristics came through, with discordant overtones played over Romantic musical elements. This technique reappeared later in the Scherzo, this time bringing in Spanish dance themes. The Fugue played by the strings was magical, and immensely delicate at a dynamic of piano-pianissimo, followed by the round-like trading of calls between the two violins and then the cello.

As the Shostakovich took on a more optimistic tone, after a mournful violin solo played perfectly by Elizabeth Sellars, there was a...