ACO: Trout Quintet & Quartet for the End of Time at City Hall

Small in scale but exceptionally musically and emotionally ambitious is the Australian Chamber Orchestra’s concert combining Schubert's Trout Quintet and Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time, with brilliant young Palestinian-Israeli pianist Saleem Abboud Ashkar and clarinettist Paul Dean.

SCHUBERT Piano Quintet, "Trout"
MESSIAEN Quartet for the End of Time

Helena Rathbone Violin
Christopher Moore Viola
Timo-Veikko Valve Cello
Maxime Bibeau Double Bass
Paul Dean Clarinet
Saleem Abboud Ashkar Piano

This concert pairs two great works inspired by very different experiences away from home, both written for the musicians available and, as a result, for unusual combinations of instruments.

Aged 22, Schubert had his first holiday in the country. In the Trout, he captures the mood of those carefree summer days and his ecstatic delight in the countryside, in warm, beguiling melodies and harmonies.

A prisoner of war, Messiaen wrote the Quartet for the End of Time for the musicians he found in the camp, premiering it to an audience of inmates and guards. "Never" he said, "was I listened to with such rapt attention and comprehension." Critic Alex Ross calls it "the most ethereally beautiful music of the 20th century...as overpowering now as it was on that frigid night in 1941."

ACO Principals are joined by clarinettist Paul Dean and dynamic young pianist Saleem Abboud Ashkar, making his Australian debut.

"The most ethereally beautiful music of the 20th century...as overpowering now as it was on that frigid night in 1941." - Alex Ross

"His [Saleem Abboud Ashkar] brilliant technique allowed him to play with wonderful phrasing and tender shimmering sounds." - Der Bund