Australian String Quartet Performs Contemporary German Works
Founded in 2010, the Sydney-based chamber ensemble Acacia Quartet has quickly won great respect for their versatile and inventive programs which often couple established repertoire with the unorthodox. Since 2016 Acacia has their own concert series at the Sydney Opera House. Supported by Goethe-Institut, Acacia Quartet was invited to Berlin in order to perform and record Raphael's string quartets Nos. 1, 2 & 6 in May 2017. Now they are taking their performance back to Australia and to the Goethe-Institut in Sydney.
The versatile and prolific composer Günter Raphael (1903-1960) contributed numerous symphonic works. Characteristic for them is the continuous dialogue with tradition; over the years he developed a style of unmistakable individuality, equally portraying lush sound and polyphonic structures. His music radiates a strong spiritual and intellectual concentration, not the least through his eminent contrapuntal mastery and his enjoyment in combining prominent melodic elements with a clear formal sense; yet with an inventive abundance of rhythmic elements.
"[…] Günter Raphael got caught in the field of tension produced by dictatorship and racist madness during the Nazi period. Although his oeuvre was not branded as 'degenerate' between 1933 and 1945 (he was too firmly rooted in the German music tradition for such a label), his Jewish heritage on his father's side made him persona non grata. He was fortunate enough to escape deportation." (Matthias Hermann)
Despite his personal fate, Raphael’s humour plays an essential role in several of his works. Just as audible, though, are numerous depressive traces of the "silent period of his life”.
This event is part of the
German Week, coordinated by the
German General Consulate Sydney in conjunction with several other local German institutions.
Free entry
6.00 pm Doors
6.30 pm Concert
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