FLINDERS QUARTET
Elizabeth Sellars • violin
Wilma Smith • violin
Helen Ireland • viola
Zoe Knighton • cello

AGATHA YIM, POLYPHONIC PICTURES filming and editing
THOMAS GRUBB, MANO MUSICA sound engineering, editing and mastering

Filmed March 2024 in the Primrose Potter Salon, Melbourne Recital Centre, Wurundjeri Country/Southbank

This project was made possible through support from Creative Victoria, City of Melbourne, Creative Australia, and Robert Salzer Foundation

GORDON KERRY 1961-
String Quartet No. 6 (composed 2023)

Commissioned by Flinders Quartet with support from Siobhan Lenihan, for Dolores and Denis Lenihan 

Learning this piece has been such a satisfying experience, largely due to the number of unifying factors. Apart from the plainchant theme which is often hidden in plain sight (or hearing, as it were), the quaver tempo never fluctuates even though this will not be apparent to the listener.

The interlocking melodies and counterpoint fit together like a complex puzzle. But much like one Escher’s intricate drawings, they change continually with each hearing dependent on the listener’s auditory perspective.

The most glorious point in the piece is the outburst of A major which has been sitting in our subconscious since the beginning with the piece using the Dorian mode with A as a pivot note. This string quartet feels like music written in its purest form with no obvious subtext or narrative, just the perfection of organised sound.

A note from the composer:                                     

“Siobhan Lenihan has been a close friend and colleague for many years, and was responsible for my composing my first quartet, Torquing Points, as part of a residency with Musica Viva in Schools, a program that she administered. So it is a great delight to compose a piece honouring her parents, Dolores and Denis, who were also very dear to me.                                                          

The piece was completed in May 2023 and is in one movement. It begins in slow, simple fashion, with modal counterpoint derived from a favourite plainchant that also informs much of the rest of the piece. A new section maintains the original pulse, but now in 6/ 8, leading to the work's fastest section where terse rhythmic ideas create contrast with more extended, serene counterpoint. The final section is slow, but ornately decorated.”

Gordon Kerry is a composer and writer living on a hill in north-eastern Victoria. Recent works include Whatever yon brightness be for organ, his second Piano Sonata for Amir Farid, Alchemy for the Australian Chamber Choir, Clarinet Quintet for Omega Ensemble, Sinfonia concertante for Alison Mitchell, Irit Silver and the Queensland Symphony Orchestra under Ben Northey; Christchurch Monody for The Marais Project, and a Violin Sonata for Emily Sun and Amir Farid presented by Musica Viva. Cellist Daniel Chiou premiered Soliloquy as part of The ANAM Set in Melbourne, and Six-Part Inventions for Inventi Ensemble was performed in Melbourne and on a substantial tour of regional Victorian and NSW centres. His Missa gaudeamus omnes was performed in Sydney in November 2022. He has worked with Plexus, the jazz/gamba band Elysian Fields, Acacia Quartet, the Australia Ensemble and Halcyon; he has written four operas, a large body of orchestral and chamber music. His previous string quartets have been performed by the Melbourne, Australian, Acacia, Dorian, Sartory, Takács and St Lawrence String Quartets.

Kerry is the author of New Classical Music: Composing Australia and numerous articles and chapters on musical subjects. He has been awarded fellowships by the Ian Potter Cultural Trust, the Australia Council, the Peggy Glanville-Hicks Trust and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. He studied composition with Barry Conyngham at the University of Melbourne.