Music / Beethoven-Vasks-Daft Punk, Phoenix Collective Quartet. At Wesley Uniting Church, November 15. Reviewed by ROB KENNEDY.

What do Beethoven, Peteris Vasks and Daft Punk have in common? The group who has some of the best programming and sound quality in Australia, Phoenix Collective.

It is impossible to tell how many concerts the quartet of Dan Russell, violin; Pip Thompson, violin; Ella Brinch, viola and Andrew Wilson on cello who make up the Phoenix Collective Quartet perform each year, because I can’t count that high, but it’s in the hundreds.

The sound quality of Phoenix has been upped in the last month with the purchase of a special violin that artistic director Dan Russell acquired while in England. For all coming concerts and this one we got to hear the Carlo Antonio Testore violin from C1730 in all its glory.

To demonstrate the beauty of its tone, Russell performed several bars of The Lark Ascending by Vaughn Williams. Its volume and quality were impressive.

After Beethoven’s usual dramatic announcement, his String Quartet No.11 in F minor op 95 Serioso (1810), Phoenix was into the meat of the music. Counterpoint plays a huge part in Beethoven’s music, and this quartet is exemplary for that. It fills the music with multiple levels of interest for the ear.

The pensive second movement is full of adoration and softness. But again, the complexity of layers is never far away. Parts are like there’s a hidden message in the music. It seems to tell an aural story, or a secret.

The build and tension in the third and final movements offered a profound, dramatic and highly enjoyable musical experience through layers of rich development.

Next came the String Quartet No. 4 by Latvian composer Peteris Vasks. In five movements, it’s an airy, ethereal work with many contemporary techniques. It builds on these techniques to form a highly particular sound world. It slides through harmonics as its prominent voice. When a strongly pressed bowed note arrived, it cut through. More like ambience than music, yet it wavered between the two, which formed a unified tonal composition.

The use of effects was somewhat overwritten, until the second movement arrived. Then the music thrust itself forward in a demanding way. Its rapid attacks and dynamic variances created a new energy.

Movements flowed into one another, until the final, a standalone meditation of string music. It has been adapted into other mediums and used as inspiration by composers. The Australian Ella Mason has reworked its idea. Like gentle, slow breathing, it barely pulses. It is tender, touching, personal and transformative. The playing made it work a treat.

Starting with seriousness, then sadness, it finished with fun. Daft Punk dance fun. While quite tuneful, a song titled, I Feel It Coming, the dance elements swayed to the front. The lightness and freshness in each piece, Something About Us and Lose Yourself to Dance, was an experience of joy and good times. It wrapped up a concert of diverse music that spoke from the heart. But the audience wanted more, and they got Get Lucky, by those French punks.