Two works embracing the evolutionary journey of musical and emotional transfiguration.

Nolan Gallery, MONA
June 14, 2015

“This is a MONA gallery music experience, not a concert hall experience.” Spoken into the vast void of the Nolan Gallery at Tasmania’s Museum of Old and New Art (MONA), these words set the standard for a spectacular evening of music. Comprising violinists Peter Tanfield and Lucy Carrig-Jones, violists Anna Roach and Douglas Coghill, and cellists Ivan James and Martin Penicka, The Discovery 6Tet performed two works that embrace the evolutionary journey of musical and emotional transfiguration.

Given the contemporary nature of the works in this program, it was exciting to see music taken to a new space. One of MONA’s exhibits, an intriguing wall adorned with loops of rope on meat hooks, provided a backdrop to the shadowy stage.

The concert opened with Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s String Sextet in D, Op. 10, a work described at its premiere in 1917 as “the finest since Brahms”. Featuring complex interplay between the six voices, this work demands a high standard of technical mastery and musicality. Ably led by Peter Tanfield, these professional musicians achieved a beautiful balance.

From the lyrical opening notes of...