What a difference a bass makes! Though numerous string quintets have been composed over time – Boccherini himself wrote over 120 of them – they don’t often feature in concert performances, rather playing second fiddle to the far more prolific and popular string quartets. However, whether the quintet substitutes a double bass for a second cello, as in the Onslow, or the score intentionally calls for a double bass alongside the cello, as in the Boccherini and Dvorak, the impact of having the bass with the quartet is profound, delighting the senses with the depth and sonority that it brings.

This was the first concert of a new season for Wellington Chamber Music, and the organisers must have been anxious. The pandemic has changed audiences and the business of giving concerts. Would they come?

They needn’t have worried. St Andrew’s was pleasantly full for this delightful concert, featuring Rachel Vernon on clarinet.

I thought this concert featured a most enterprising programme, a combination of familiar and relatively unfamiliar music, with works for oboe and strings framing two strings-only pieces, providing continual interest and variety for listeners. With each of the concert’s “halves” featuring a shorter, followed by a longer piece, the presentation had an unforced ease of both delivery and reception, the ensemble’s efforts warmly acclaimed at the concert’s end.

tldr: the short story

An excellent concert from the Aroha Quartet and Diedre Irons.
The Haydn was energised and the Brahms was stormy, potent and robust. The applause confirmed the audience’s enjoyment of the performance.
Unbound, by Brigid Bisley was and excellent work – contemporary but accessible and very well played by the quartet.

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The long story:

Brahms' Piano Quintet in F Minor is like a campaign for change that's sweeping the world.

It has something to say and is unstoppable in saying it.

The sublime quintet was the final work presented by The Aroha String Quartet with pianist, Diedre Irons, at The Globe, Palmerston North, on Wednesday night.

It has drive, determination and rhythmic muscularity. Brahms poured plenty of ideas into the quintet and the musicians tamed the work with a powerful interpretation. What upheld their performance was exuberance.

The Aroha Quartet, one of the nation’s musical treasures, comprises members of the NZSO. With economy of effort, the players therefore plan their performance schedule around the regional habits of their orchestra. Unlike most visiting chamber music groups, the tour and its publicity fall outside the ambit of the highly successful NZ Chamber Music’s successful subscription series, an enterprise that guarantees effective concert promotion and consequent good attendances.

With concerts by two string quartets, the New Zealand String Quartet and the Aroha Quartet within two days, the Brodsky quartet on the 20th and the Kiwa quartet on the 26th of May seems like a festival of string quartets. With so much music, it is the works that challenge that makes these concerts memorable.

It was most unfortunate that this concert had had to be rescheduled; this made it clash with another chamber music concert in the city, which was presumably responsible for the rather small audience.
Anne Loeser substituted for the regular second violinist Ursula Evans, the latter having had an injury.

Rosemary Collier’s review of Wednesday’s concert by participants in the 2018 Aroha String Quartet International Music Academy, offered a view of the level of performance skill that emerged from the week-long participation in the Academy, the fourth in what has become an annual event. Middle C appears to have overlooked them in the past. Further recitals by participants are taking place in the evenings and notably on Saturday evening, 28 July.

Performances by the Aroha String Quartet are often characterised by imaginative programming, the ensemble selecting their repertoire across a range of periods and style.

Wednesday's concert was no exception with its winning mix of the familiar with works that are heard far less frequently, going a long way to ensure audiences broaden their listening pleasure.

Haihong Liu led the ensemble from the first violin stand, supported by Zhongxian Jin on the viola and Palmerston North's own Robert Ibell on the cello.

This was one of those concerts that, had I been an ordinary audience member I would have looked forward to immensely! However, being a reviewer and facing the prospect of commenting on a genre of music about which I knew very little, I felt a mixture of excitement and trepidation about what I might encounter!

There's no doubt that the string quartet as a genre has dominated the world of chamber music since the time of Josef Haydn - the repertoire is astonishing in its depth and diversity, and together with the sheer number of ensembles, both historical and contemporary, constitutes almost a world of its own. The effect of this has, I think, tended to downplay the "presence" in the chamber music firmament, of differently constituted groups, and possibly their "status" in the minds of many music-lovers, as being somehow lesser or slighter in content or importance.

It's almost inconceivable that a "Schubertiade" of the kind organized here at St.Andrew's-on-the-Terrace would not include the composer's last and greatest chamber music work. This, of course, is the String Quintet in C Major D.958, which was completed just two months before Schubert's death, a work he never heard performed. In fact it had to wait until 1850 for its first public performance, and another three years before it was actually published.

It is always a pleasure to hear the Aroha String Quartet and their varied programmes.

The Haydn quartet had a rather sotto voce commencement; the movement was described in the programme notes as a greeting, such as ‘how do you do’. All of Haydn’s jollity and wit were present.

This concert was the initial fruitful outcome of a new collaborative project between SOUNZ (Centre for New Zealand Music), Radio New Zealand Concert, and the Aroha Quartet. It was undertaken in association with CANZ (Composers’ Association of New Zealand) and Chamber Music New Zealand.

The first performance by Wellington’s Aroha String Quartet took place in this venue at this time on 5 December, just 10 years ago. I wrote a review of it in The Dominion Post, ending “This is one of the finest ensembles to emerge from the NZSO ranks. I hope they can find the time to give many more concerts”. I’ve always felt pleased to have been there. This time, too, their concert clashed with another, the same, by the Wellington Chamber Orchestra, which again had the result of smaller audiences at both.

Aroha indeed. Chamber Music New Zealand's 2014 concert series in New Plymouth concluded on Friday night with a glowing performance by the Aroha Quartet, which basked the audience in the gentle warmth of their playing style.

Celebrating their 10th anniversary this year, the players have developed a very impressive homogeneity of tone and balance, especially as three of them are also full-time members of the NZSO.

What an international language classical music is. And the Aroha Quartet truly communicates this.

All four musicians play in the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, but the first violinist Haihong Liu, and viola player Zhongxian Jin, were born in China. Second violinist Blythe Press and cellist Robert Ibell were born and trained in New Zealand. Yet their harmony and musical sensitivity are totally shared.

What immediately struck me was not that Mozart should have written such a quartet at the age of 14, remarkable as that is, but rather the beauty of the playing by the Aroha Quartet. Their tone, subtle gradation of dynamics, their blend and balance were utterly disarming. Unafraid of playing real pianissimos, these musicians brought much light and shade, and delicacy, to this, the first of Mozart’s string quartets.

Prefatory note: The Aroha Quartet leave in December for their second tour to China where they will play in the spectacular new Xinghai Concert Hall in Guangzhou, and to Zhongshan. They will have with them works from six countries including China and New Zealand.

Featuring the talented ex-Palmerston North cellist Robert Ibell, the Aroha Quartet has made a name for itself presenting a range of works sometimes outside the mainstream concert programmes.

The quartet also takes opportunities to explore chamber music repertoire together with other musicians - and so it was that Tuesday night's concert featured the Aroha Quartet with Catherine McKay on the piano performing Schumann's much loved Piano Quintet.

I like to think I’ve long gone past the days when I would regard work x, y or z as my “favorite” symphony, concerto, sonata or whatever. Now, whenever I’m asked about my “favorite” whatever-it-is, I go into a “gripped by bewilderment” state, born largely of the sheer range and scope of the repertoire. I admit I take refuge sometimes behind the rather glib reply that it’s either the last work I heard performed, or else the next one I’m GOING to hear.

I heard the Aroha Quartet’s first concert in 2004 and was pretty impressed and have followed them with great interest ever since. The original quartet comprised four Chinese players, three playing in the NZSO and one, the viola Zhongxian Jin, teaching at Victoria University and free lancing. Hai-hong Liu remains leader; the other two were second violinist Beiyi Xue and cellist Jiaxin Cheng.

Aroha Plus gives wonderful programmme of string sextets
By Rosemary Collier, August 28, 2011

Dvořák: String Sextet in A, Op.48
Erwin Schulhoff: String Sextet
Brahms: String Sextet no.2 in G, Op.36 (Agathe)

Aroha String Quartet: Haihong Liu (violin),
Beiyi Xue (violin), Zhongxian Jin (viola), Robert Ibell (cello), with Lyndon
Johnston Taylor (viola) and Rowan Prior (cello)

Ilott Theatre
Sunday 28 August 2011, 3pm

Like New Yorkers have done with their numbered streets and avenues, one does get used to numberings in classical music, however bewildering and daunting it may seem for a beginner listener to register titles like Symphony No.97, String Quartet No.79, Piano Concerto No.27, or Piano Sonata No. 32. It’s probably one of the reasons that descriptive names, often nothing to do with the composer, have been so freely appended to pieces of music. These nicknames work invariably to the music’s advantage, however much the purist may scoff at the superficiality of the exercise.

Since its formation about six years ago the Aroha Quartet has gained a place close to the New Zealand String Quartet for its intuitive musicality and virtuosity. Their previous performances in this series and for Chamber Music New Zealand around the country have left no doubt about their quality and so it was a little surprising to find the 300-seat Ilott Theatre little more than half full: the weather; the Film Festival; too much other music?