Though massively influential, Margaret Sutherland’s works remain scandalously underperformed. Her Third String Quartet, a taut piece from 1967, sits three decades into her career but was her first commission. A mystical masterwork by ‘Max’ Davies will transport you to a finale of extra-terrestrial beauty, before his former disciple Ross Edwards brings you home with his saxophone quintet, suffused with the sounds of the bush. Percy Grainger makes obvious his love of the sax in some haunting miniatures and Bach fugues, arranged for lots of them.

ARTISTS

Jack Symonds, conductor Michael Duke, soprano saxophone Geoffrey Collins, flute John Gaden, poetry Jason Noble, clarinets Claire Edwardes, percussion Jacob Abela, piano James Wannan, violin & viola Blair Harris, cello Flinders Quartet Adelaide Festival Saxophone Ensemble

PROGRAM

Margaret Sutherland (1897-1984): String Quartet No. 3 (1967)

Peter Maxwell Davies (1934-2016): Ave maris stella (1975)

Brief interval

Michael Dransfield (1948-73): The Hermit of Green Light (1972)

Ross Edwards (b. 1943): Bright birds and sorrows for soprano saxophone and string quartet (2015, rev. 2019)

Percy Grainger (1882-1961): Music and arrangements of music for saxophone ensemble

The Lonely Desert-Man Sees the Tents of the Happy Tribes

The Immovable Do (or the Ciphering C) (1933-59)

J.S. Bach: Prelude and Fugue from The Well Tempered Clavier, Book II, BWV 874

John Jenkins: Fantasia for 5 viols: No. 15