BY LILY BRYANT
In an often-quoted letter from 1829, German writer Goethe neatly describes listening to a string quartet as hearing “four intelligent people conversing.”
Anyone who’s witnessed a quartet perform live will surely agree. There’s a particular synergy necessary for four minds to work both as individuals and as a collective, adapting and responding to each other moment by moment.
For their upcoming concert Affinity Quartet and Friends at Kingston City Hall, the award-winning ensemble is adding a fifth intelligent voice into the mix, in the form of Australian violist Isabella Bignasca. Mee Na Lojewski, founding member and cellist, explains how inviting a new artist into the mix can enrich the creative process.
“At the heart of what we do is chamber music, and it’s that close collaboration where each individual person in the quartet is responsible for the overall interpretation of a piece. With Affinity Quartet and Friends, we wanted to expand the quartet’s sound world by bringing in new people,” Mee Na says.
“When we bring other guests into the room and into the musical conversation, we are deeply influenced by their presence, their perspective, their instincts, their colour, so it’s very exciting.”
Adding a player offers the ensemble a chance to explore the rich repertory of viola quintets established by Mozart in the late-18th Century, and augmented by Brahms 100 years on. As Lojewski explains, musical conversation is not simply the literal interaction between players, but the interplay between two pieces of music separated by lifetimes, such as Mozart’s Quintet No. 5 in D major and Brahms’ Quintet No. 2 in G Major.
“Mozart wrote six of these string quintets, which was one of the first and the most sustained contributions to this format, and then Brahms wrote two…he definitely had Mozart’s works in mind,” she says.
“It’s a great way for the audience to see how the form developed. There are a lot of similarities, but obviously Brahms, coming later, is exploring what else can be done in this format. They are both gorgeous pieces of music.”
Pushing the boundaries of string chamber music even further, the concert will also feature Australian composer (pictured below) Huw Belling’s new work, Now Vanishing, Now Forming. Inspired by the architecture of Tadao Ando’s MPavilion, this piece formed part of Affinity’s aptly named program TAIWA (a Japanese term for ‘dialogue’), launched earlier this year.
“One of the beautiful features of the MPavilion is that the water in the space reflects onto the steel circular roof and so the water itself looks still, but then the reflection off the steel roof is quite busy and active,” Mee Na explains.
“The instruments are very closely blended in the quartet so you have this sort of ripple of sound, like water, where individual voices don’t come out of the overall texture, however within that there is a lot of rhythmic movement and activity.”
And when it comes to witnessing the magic of this dialogue, up close and personal is the way to go.
“The Kingston City Hall is going to be a really great intimate space for listening, so we’d love to have a full house to come and listen to a musical conversation.
“The custodianship of this art form which has an incredible history over four centuries is very important to us, and it’s the essence of what we do.”
Experience Affinity and Friends at 2pm June 14, Kingston Arts Centre, 979 Nepean Highway, Moorabbin.
Images supplied featuring Affinity Quartet’s recent performances May 2026: Justin Art House Museum, credit 3MBS Radio, Kennedy Nolan, credit Hilary Walker.
Have your say.