Music / Phoenix Collective Quartet with Ying Liu. At Tuggeranong Arts Centre, 21 April reviewed by GRAHAM McDONALD

THE Phoenix Collective (this time in string-quartet mode) continues its explorations of other musics with this current series of concerts featuring erhu player Ying Liu.

The erhu, for those unfamiliar with it, is a two-stringed Chinese fiddle with a cylindrical wooden sound box, around the size of a drink can, with a snakeskin resonating surface. The bow hair is between the strings and the neck, with tension applied by pushing the hair on to the strings and the strings stopped with the left hand by touching the strings, rather than pushing them down to the neck. The tonality is subtly different from a western violin, but enough to differentiate the instruments.

The program was a mix of Chinese music and Chinese-influenced western music.

The first work was a solo cello arrangement of the Chinese folk tune “Yellow River”, followed by three short quartet arrangements of Chinese folk songs. The quartet was then joined by Yang Liu who presented a solo of the popular Chinese song “Jasmine Flower” before working with the quartet for three varied works. These included Peter Sculthorpe’s “Left Bank Waltz”, witch had the feel of a salon orchestra, a Chinese tune “Beautiful Night” full of glissando effects and an improvisation around the theme music of the film “Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon” with some delightful harmonies especially from the cello.

To follow that with Debussy’s String Quartet in G minor, op10 seemed an odd choice until it was explained that Debussy was fascinated by oriental music, which he had heard at a world exposition in Paris a few years before composing this work. There was an understated sense of the east in the work, with hints of Chinese melodies especially in the slow third movement which featured some delicate playing from all the musicians.

This was a well-conceived and beautifully played concert that brought together two musical traditions in an entertaining and informative way that gave equal value to each style of music.