Slava Grigoryan and the ASQ show you don’t need to be famous to be five

MENTION guitar quintets and the name Luigi Boccherini springs to mind — and not much else. Slava Grigoryan and the ASQ are putting that right.

Australian String Quartet with Slava Grigoryan are promoting their new album Migration on their current tour.

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MENTION guitar quintets and the name Luigi Boccherini springs to mind — and not much else.

The 18th century Italian composer wrote several of them, but these aside the repertoire for this configuration of instruments is sparse to say the least.

Thankfully there are a few contemporary composers who are keeping the genre alive and it was two modern works, one by 77-year-old American jazz veteran Ralph Towner and the other by Australian composer Iain Grandage, which make up the first half of the current Australian String Quartet tour with multi-award winning classical guitarist Slava Grigoryan.

Towner, who has worked with Grigoryan and the Austrian guitarist Wolfgang Muthspiel as the trio MGT, started off as a jazz pianist before turning more to the guitar, especially the 12-string.

He composed his quintet Migration in 2003 for an album which never materialised. When he told Grigoryan about it the young Australian jumped at the chance of recording it with the ASQ.

Written in one movement it is divided into three fast-slow-fast sections, with plenty of challenging jazz-tinged runs for the guitar and some intense interplay from the string quartet. Lead violin Dale Barltrop describes it as a complex rhythmical tapestry — there is also a lovely serene guitar solo in the middle — reflecting Towner’s interest in Indian music “where a bar can last for ages”.

DEPRESSION

This was a superbly tight performance from the five musicians, with some exciting rhythmical exchanges between Slava and his wife Sharon Grigoryan on cello.

The second quintet, Black Dogs, was composed by Perth-based Grandage for guitarist Craig Ogden and the Brodsky Quartet in 2008 in honour of two of his friends who experienced depression.

The guitar represents a person’s mind while the quartet can be thought of as the intrusive “voices in the head” that ratchet up the anxiety and tension to a fever pitch in the third movement.

For the opening part of the four-part work Barltrop and second violin Francesca Hiew stood off to the side of the stage, heightening the impression of the nagging voices, before resuming their places centre stage.

Although dark, this is an attractive piece and the balance between the slightly amplified guitar and the four Guadagnini instruments was beautifully maintained.

The cover of Slava Grigoryan and the Australian String Quartet's new album Migration.

The two works, along with a quintet by Muthspiel, can be heard on Grigoryan and the ASQ’s recently released ABC Classic album Migration.

For the second part of the concert the ASQ tackled Schubert’s monumental final quartet in G major which, as violist Stephen King pointed out, moves within three bars to the minor, setting up the shifting but simple framework of the whole four movements.

The work has been overshadowed by its predecessor, Death and the Maiden, as well as the String Quintet, and to hear it performed, and so beautifully in this instance, is a rare treat indeed.

DETAILS

● CONCERT: Australian String Quartet and Slava Grigoryan

● WHERE: City Recital Hall Angel Place

● WHEN: Wednesday, May 31