A Weekend of String Quartets, August 2025

14 August:

The first Hayllar Music Tours chamber music weekend for this year is underway here at Spicers Hidden Vale resort in Queensland: The Art of the String Quartet is our theme.

After my first talk yesterday afternoon we had the first opportunity to hear our amazing artists who have come together to form a "super quartet" for the event: Andrew Haveron, Lerida Delbridge, Justin Williams and Timo-Veikko Valve.

Their first program was an electrifying combination of two great Czech works: Janáček's "Intimate Letters" and Dvořák's "American" quartets. A word heard quite a lot among our guests as we went to dinner afterwards was, "Wow!"

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15 August:

Day 2 of The Art of the String Quartet - Friday - began with my second talk for our guests. Later in the morning we had the first of our two morning performances of the weekend. Our musicians (the Haveron/Delbridge/Williams/Valve quartet) performed the vast slow movement from Beethoven's Op 132 quartet, after a fascinating introduction to the piece from Andrew Haveron.

There was time for a short interview/chat with Andrew and Tipi before we all jumped on the bus and decamped to Boonah for lunch at the marvellous Blume restaurant. Highly recommended.

The quartet's evening concert again featured two works. This time it was Mozart's "Dissonance" and Schubert's "Death and the Maiden" quartets. As per the preceding evening, "Wow!" was the appropriate response. It's such a privilege to experience music making of this calibre up close with fewer than 40 people present.

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16 August:

The final full day of The Art of the String Quartet - Saturday - provided yet another musical feast. After my third and final talk on the history of the string quartet (during which we had an earthquake, as you do), we had our second morning concert.

This consisted of three separate movements from three very different quartets: the first movement of Haydn's first quartet, Op 1/1, the second movement of Ravel's string quartet, and the slow movement of Barber's quartet (which later became the Adagio for Strings).

This was followed by an interview/chat with Lerida Delbridge and Justin Williams, which was an absolute delight.

After a fairly relaxed afternoon our final evening concert was yet another stunner. Again it was two works: the Shostakovich 8th quartet (always a shattering experience) and the second of Beethoven's Razumovsky quartets (the E minor, Op 59/2).

We then had a wonderful farewell dinner here at the Spicers Hidden Vale resort which was a perfect end to a stunning musical experience. Having musicians the calibre of Andrew Haveron, Lerida Delbridge, Justin Williams and Timo-Veikko Valve share their artistry with us was a genuine privilege. Yet another great experience to treasure, thanks to Hayllar Music Tours.

First posted on Facebook