Music / American Dreams, Phoenix Collective Quartet. At All Saints Church, Ainslie, March 21. Reviewed by GRAHAM McDONALD.

This is the Phoenix Collective’s first quartet program for the year and they have chosen two quite different interpretations of American music. 

The first was the String Quartet No 12 by the Bohemian composer Antonin Dvorak, written in 1893 while spending the summer in Iowa. 

The second was Mark O’Connor’s String Quartet No 3, Old Time, written in 2007. O’Connor, born in 1961, was a child prodigy bluegrass and old-time fiddle and guitar player who has led almost a double life playing both traditional folk music and as a respected classical composer.

The concert opened with his best-known work Appalachia Waltz that was originally conceived as the slow movement for a violin concerto, but has taken on a life of its own after O’Connor recorded it with Yo-Yo Ma and Edgar Myer. In this quartet arrangement it is a soft wash of music that flows around the audience.

The Dvorak quartet followed this against a backdrop of crickets through the windows, which seemed entirely appropriate for a piece of music written in a mid-Western summer.

Each movement has its own charm, with the well known melodic theme of the first movement, the cello lead of the slow second, the gentle dance rhythms of the triple time third movement and the suggestions of American popular music, cakewalks, rags and marches of the late 19th century mandolin orchestra craze in the final movement.

The concert concluded with the Australian premier of the O’Connor quartet and what a delight this was. In her entertaining and informative introduction, violinist Pip Thompson described the work as “deconstructed folk”. 

The first movement, which O’Connor describes as “Aggressive with Precision” takes fragments of old-time fiddle tunes (or melodies which could be) and bends and twists them into something new and different. The second, slow movement in waltz time has hints of Norwegian hardanger fiddles in high, ringing notes. The third movement has a similar feel to the first but with a different treatment while the final movement takes a 32-bar, old-time dance tune and reworks it over and over. 

This is a captivating and exciting piece of music and as usual, excellently played. A fine start to the year for the PCQ.