South Island Tour 2025

Updated: 5 days ago

We're on the road this May with concerts in Dunedin, Arrowtown, Ōkārito, Barrytown and Christchurch

Saturday 10 May, 5pm | Orokonui Ecosanctuary, Dunedin

Sunday 11 May, 7pm | Arrowtown Lifestyle Village, Arrowtown - Presented by Arrowtown Creative Arts Society

Monday 12 May, 7:30pm | Donovan's Store, Ōkārito

Tuesday 13 May, 7:30pm | Barrytown Settlers Hall, Barrytown

Thursday 15 May, 7pm | The Piano, Christchurch - Presented by Christopher's Classics

PROGRAMME NOTES

Salina Fisher (1993-)

Torino echoes on putorino improvisations by Rob Thorne (2016)

Discovering the music of taonga pūoro artist Rob Thorne has been the most deeply moving listening experience in my recent memory. I was mesmerized by the many powerful and haunting voices that Thorne could produce through one instrument in particular, the pūtōrino, and felt compelled to explore further and respond musically. The pūtōrino is a purely Māori instrument, and is unique in that can function both as a ‘trumpet’ and ‘flute’. This results in two distinct voices: the deeper, mournful kōkiri o te tane (male voice), and the eerie, more agile waiata o te hine (female voice). An elusive third voice can be achieved by blowing across the māngai (central opening). Thorne ventures further, finding a fourth ‘humming’ voice, as well as percussive sounds. The instrument’s shape is based on the New Zealand case moth cocoon and embodies Hine Raukatauri, the atua (goddess) of music.

Programme note by Salina Fisher, from Notes From a Journey II

Programme change: Please note that there has been a slight change to our tour programme. Shostakovich String Quartet No.3 in F major, Op. 73 has been replaced with Shostakovich String Quartet No. 1 in C major Op 49

Dimitri Shostakovich (1906 - 1975)

String Quartet No. 1 in C major Op 49 (1938)

I. Moderato

II. Moderato

III. Allegro molto

IV. Allegro

Written in 1938, at the age of 32, Shostakovich’s first string quartet begins his extraordinary cycle of 15 quartets. Beginning softly and with almost childlike innocence, the piece is uncharacteristically tonal and often serene. Gone are the shocking dissonances and tense harmonic undulations of his symphonies. Lasting less than 15 minutes, we might even view this piece as an emotional respite from the tumult of Shostakovich’s bigger works.

Perhaps in a similar way to the trepidation Brahms felt in attempting to write his first symphony after the extraordinary output of Beethoven, Shostakovich looked back to the comfort, and balanced elegance, of the eighteenth-century for his first string quartet.

The words of Shostakovich himself demonstrate his compositional process for the work:

“The whole year after completing Symphony No. 5 I did nothing. I merely wrote the Quartet, consisting of four small sections. No special idea or emotions had stimulated me to write it, and I thought the effort would fail. I wrote the first page as a kind of exercise in the quartet form, and I never thought I would complete it. Yet later on the work absorbed me to the extent that I completed the quartet extraordinarily rapidly.”

Edvard Grieg (1843 - 1907)

String Quartet in G minor, Opus 27 (1877 - 78)

I. Un poco andante - Allegro molto ed agitato

II. Romanze: Andantino

III. Intermezzo: Allegro molto marcato - Piu vivo e scherzando

IV. Finale: Lento - Presto al saltarello

Grieg wrote three string quartets, the first of which is lost, and the third never completed, leaving this Quartet in G minor as his only complete composition in this genre. Unusually dense for its time, the quartet uses fortissimo double-stopping across multiple instruments to create a rich, orchestral texture. Elsewhere, Grieg explores subtler sonorities through seamless voice leading, folk-inspired melodies, and dance rhythms, producing a work of striking variety. Franz Liszt, a friend and admirer, praised its originality, and it remains one of the most influential quartets of the late 19th century.

At its core is a motif drawn from Grieg’s Ibsen-inspired song Spillemænd (‘Minstrel’). The tune—beginning on the tonic, descending to the seventh, then the fifth—recalls the opening of his Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 16, and unifies the quartet’s four movements.

The motif appears in the slow introduction of the first movement, disrupts the waltz-like calm of the Romanze, and opens the Allegro molto third movement before a gentler middle section. It returns in the final movement’s introduction, leading to a lively Presto driven by folk-inspired, saltarello-style dance rhythms, ending the work in a bright G major. Grieg described the quartet as aiming for “breadth” and “vigorous sound,” not fleeting brilliance.