Acacia Quartet: Mozart Dvorak Chance
Three four-movement string quartets — Mozart’s D minor K. 421, Alice Chance’s Sundried, and Dvořák’s American — played with the clarity and ensemble blend Acacia Quartet is known for.
Lisa Stewart violin
Myee Clohessy violin
Stefan Duwe viola
Anna Martin-Scrase cello
The programme pairs a Haydn-set Mozart quartet and Dvořák’s beloved Op. 96 with a recent Australian commission. Chance’s four movements — Exposure, Dribble Castle, Tomatoes, Aloe Vera — turn heat, play, and relief into vivid string writing, framed by classical restraint and late-Romantic warmth.
Acacia Quartet had been performing and recording together for more than a decade when this disc appeared, and the playing shows that hard-won unity of tone and phrasing. The release reached number 6 on the ARIA Classical Charts in July 2022.
As a person with synaesthesia, I conceptualise music in vivid colours and textures. The idea of music gradually drying, burning, fermenting and wrinkling in the sun is hugely intriguing. For an audience member, listening to my work is the sonic equivalent of watching a time-lapse of a sun-drying tomato, and getting to taste its increasingly intense deliciousness all the while.
The first movement Exposure is the time-lapse movement. Stillness and transparency are portrayed by diaphanous light sounds with glinting harmonics, intervals of fourths and fifths, occasionally disorienting additive metres, increased dissonance that always finds breathing space and reprieve.
The second movement, Dribble Castle, is playful. It mirrors the process of building a sand-castle by “dribbling” wet sand into a pile, resulting in a bulbous, elegant castle. Playful, snappy pizzicati add to the funky music soundscape.
The third movement is Tomatoes. If eating tomatoes had a soundtrack, it would be this movement. Imagine shaking a plant and hundreds of cherry tomatoes falling off. Bursting, fast passages of scuttling semiquavers are interspersed with spiky and sweet motifs.
The fourth movement, Aloe Vera, is the cool salve, a soothing, mentholic antidote to the heat of the sun – the antithesis of the first movement. The music is homophonic with a simple ballad-like mantra of repeating and slowly developing phrases creating feelings of alleviation and relief.
Reviews
The Acacia Quartet play (the Mozart String Quartet No 15, K421) with verve, and there’s some lovely subtleties of colour in the aching Andante. The concluding movement has an almost conversational quality to its short, sharp phrases, rounding the quartet off nicely. The Dvořák String Quartet No 12, 'American', is given a top-notch performance, with the last two movements really taking flight.
... a charming trio of diverse string quartets, expertly played and interpreted. (In the Mozart) the ensemble engages with classical restraint and understated passion. Acacia Quartet showcases Chance’s writing and the possibilities of the stringed instruments. It is a piece which interestingly, attempts to express tactile and taste sensations in sound, with innovative acoustic effects. Dvořák’s 'American' gathers the melodic patterns, harmonies and rhythms expressing the quintessential feel of the New World. Established eleven years ago, Acacia Quartet recently bade farewell to founding second violinist Myee Clohessy. Acacia Quartet: Mozart Dvorak Chance marks the experience and synergy of this lengthy performing partnership, demonstrating a unity of purpose, well balanced tone, an understanding of the thematic material and the ability to express it.
Chance’s String Quartet No. 2, nicknamed 'Sundried', is an impressionistic work comprising 4 movements. The first movement, Exposure, reflects time-lapse photography involving stillness and transparency while the second movement, Dribble Castle, portrays the playful process of building a sand castle. The fast third movement, Tomatoes, reflects the shaking of a tomato plant that results in hundreds of cherry tomatoes falling off. The final movement, Aloe Vera, is the cool antidote to the rather dissonant first movement.
There are many fine string quartets on the Australian musical landscape. The Acacia Quartet has earned its place amongst the best. ... an excellent recoding.
Artists
Acacia Quartet
Founded in 2010, Acacia Quartet is an Australian string quartet known for versatile, inventive programmes and a strong commitment to new music. Its recordings have drawn national notice, including an APRA-AMCOS Art Music Award nomination.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He wrote over 600 works, many of them pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic and choral music, and remains among the most enduringly popular of classical composers.
Alice Chance
Alice Chance is an Australian composer, conductor, arranger and lyricist. Her works are heard in concert halls from the Sydney Opera House and City Recital Hall Angel Place to the Kennedy Centre, and in cathedrals in Sydney, California and New York.
Antonín Dvořák
Antonín Dvořák (1841–1904) was a Czech composer whose music fused the folk rhythms and melodies of Bohemia and Moravia with the Romantic symphonic tradition, earning lasting international renown.
Tracks
- i. Allegro moderato 8:40
- ii. Andante 6:14
- iii. Menuetto (Allegretto) – Trio 3:45
- iv. Allegretto ma non troppo 9:38
- i. Exposure 4:16
- ii. Dribble Castle 3:27
- iii. Tomatoes 2:49
- iv. Aloe Vera 5:27
- i. Allegro ma non troppo 10:10
- ii. Lento 8:10
- iii. Molto vivace 4:27
- iv. Finale: Vivace ma non troppo 5:53
String Quartet No. 15 in D minor, K. 421 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
String Quartet No. 2: “Sundried” Alice Chance
Quartet in F major, Op. 96: “American” Antonín Dvořák
Performers
Where to listen
Acacia Quartet: Mozart Dvorak Chance is available for streaming through Spotify and Apple Music. It can also be purchased through the iTunes Music Store.
Acacia Quartet: Mozart Dvorak Chance is available as a CD. It can be purchased online through Buywell Music or the Australian Music Centre which both offer online ordering.
Product details
- Catalogue number
- MCD 626
- List price
- $25.00 AUD
- Total playing time
- 72 minutes 56 seconds
- Producer
- Jayson McBride
- Recording Engineer
- Jayson McBride
- Venue
- Orange Regional Conservatorium
- Release date
- 1 Apr 2022
- Musical work
copyright - © 2022 Acacia Quartet
- Sound recording
copyright - ℗ 2022 Move Records
- Category
- Classical
- Genres
- Romantic & Impressionist, Contemporary Classical
- Barcode
- EAN 9314574062625
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