★★★½☆ Melbourne foursome brings us Beethoven’s words and music in a nutshell.

Utzon Room, Sydney Opera House
September 27, 2016

Melbourne’s Tinalley Quartet (Adam Chalabi, Lerida Delbridge, Justin Williams and Michelle Wood) don’t perform many concerts in their season – just two tours this year. But what they may lack in quantity they more than make up for in quality, not only in their performances but also in the interesting programmes they put together.

Earlier in the year they toured with folk-rock singer-songwriter Lior in an arc-like journey Through Nature to Eternity using conventional chamber music like Samuel Barber’s Adagio alongside Lior songs and new works by contemporary Australian composers.

For their second tour of the year they have melded words and music in a fascinating exploration of Beethoven the man and Beethoven the consummate Romantic composer, with Bell Shakespeare Founder and former Artistic Director John Bell reading excerpts from his letters interwoven with movements from a handful of quartets.

This was an engrossing and entertaining evening which, by and large, worked handsomely. The first half was devoted to music only with a performance of Mendelssohn’s First Quartet, the A Minor Op. 13 which he wrote shortly after Beethoven died in 1827 as an...