Review - Villani Piano Quartet

The Villani Piano Quartet played in Rotorua on Saturday.

What: Villani Piano Quartet
Where: Concert Chamber
When: Saturday

Although this Auckland-based group was founded only last year it has already made a reputation for the quality of its chamber music.

Its members brought wide international experience and they impressed with the clarity and expression in their playing, and for the exemplary cohesion and balance between the piano, violin, viola and cello.

Their engaging programme included three works with strong national flavours.

Peteris Vasks's Quartet can be regarded as a powerful rejection through folk music themes of the Russian domination of his native Latvia.

While only two of its six movements were played, the Villani Ensemble's crisp and driving rhythms made the composer's protest thoroughly persuasive.

Frank Bridge's Phantasy quartet, too, struck patriotic and credible chords, as it was full of the moods and colour of England.

New Zealand had its own voice in Alfred Hill's The Sacred Mountain, a short work inspired by a Maori legend on Mount Tongariro, but enough to convey the depth of their feeling for the land.

Schumann's Piano Quartet is remarkable for its mastery and hopefulness because it was written at a time of depression.

Two of its movements stood out, the scherzo for its delicacy and the slow movement for its lyricism.

- By Hanno Fairburn