Doric dynamo

Various venues, Perth, February 17-19

For many years, internationallyacclaimed pianist Alasdair Beatson has toured the world’s concert halls, in either solo, concerto or chamber music capacity. However, the lure of his homeland is hard to resist.

“I adore playing in Perth, to my home audience,” he says. “Not only does it feel special returning to the city where I grew up, but the acoustic and piano of the Perth Concert Hall are world-class. So I always look forward immensely to Perth performances.”

Alasdair returns to the city this weekend with the Doric Quartet who are an ensemble of equal international renown. They will play three concerts on which the accent is firmly chamber music.

“This residency is really about chamber music, but I couldn’t resist programming in Sunday’s concert Schumann’s Scenes from Childhood. These are tiny jewel-like pieces and the perfect foil for the enormous, extrovert and dramatic Brahms quintet which follows.”

Mendelssohn’s E flat Op 12 quartet will complete the Sunday evening Concert Hall programme but the concert the previous night will be exclusive to the Doric.

The venue transfers to St John’s Kirk and there they will perform quartets by Mendelssohn – his rarely-performed F minor quartet – and works by Haydn and Beethoven.

However, of all of the three concerts over the weekend, it’s the Friday night event in the Concert Hall that yields the most interesting programme when Alasdair and the Doric join forces, thus renewing an old association.

“The Doric are great friends of mine, and it’s a privilege to bring our partnership to my home town,” says Alasdair.

“Our musical collaboration has been pretty constant since we first met as students, and our growth as musical artists since has in many ways been parallel.

“We wanted Friday’s concert to consist of three different piano quintets,” continues Alasdair, “so we had to be careful that the programme was balanced.

“We’ve come up with a really exciting combination of Fauré, Elgar and a brilliant short work by Thomas Adès, one of the world’s best living composers.

“All the pieces create different and unique sounds. Fauré is refined and often delicate and sensual. The Adès is in one movement and feels quite architectural, and it contains both the loudest and the quietest movement of the weekend. Elgar has a richness of sound and some lush melodies.

“Apart from the Brahms, all the quintets are quite rare to hear in concert.”

Alasdair Beatson teams up with the Doric Quartet to bring an exciting programme of classical music.