Austrian composer (Franz) Joseph Haydn will be the toast of the town this week - 200 years after his death.
The Southern Sinfonia performs "The Glory of Haydn" in the Dunedin Town Hall on Saturday night and the New Zealand String Quartet gives an encore with "Haydn and the String Quartet" in the Glenroy Auditorium on Tuesday night.
It will be the first time the New Zealand String Quartet has included Dunedin on its annual national tour.
Haydn (1732-1809) is considered the father of the string quartet, composing his first works in the late 1750s.
"Joseph, along with Mozart, was the great classical composer of the period, from the late 1700s to early 1800s. He produced a huge variety of music over a 50-year career," New Zealand String Quartet violinist Doug Beilman says.
"He almost single-handedly invented the genre. He wrote about 68 quartets and most of them are absolutely beautiful. It's a revelation for us to play.
"The music is extremely direct. It has an elegance and refinement, and yet it has an incredible earthy movement. It's pure pleasure."
The programme plumbs the depths and variety of Haydn's repertoire, with four of his greatest compositions from different periods of his life.
"This is our own programme and it's really quite unique," Beilman says.
"Usually, Haydn is only used in the opening piece of a programme."
"We all have shared experiences and that's how you achieve real growth. We can play without talking or discussing the piece and when it's like that, you can take it to a higher stage," he says.
"We're really well-matched and we enjoy playing together. That's not hype; it's the truth.
"We're really looking forward to playing at the Glenroy. It has an excellent acoustic. We use `wet' and `dry' to describe an acoustic. If there's no resonance it's `dry' and if there's too much it's `wet'. The Glenroy is absolutely perfect."
Beilman began taking the violin seriously at 15.
"It's so dynamic and varied and incredibly powerful. I'm very lucky to be able to do it," he says.
"I feel people fall in love with the colour of an instrument. The more I play it, the more I discover its wealth of different sounds. It has a wonderful melodic quality. It also has an incisive quality that I love so much."
The Southern Sinfonia has also jumped on the Haydn bandwagon for its final 2009 concert on Saturday night.
"The Glory of Haydn" will also feature the City of Dunedin Choir, with soloists Dunedin mezzo Claire Barton, 2000 Mobil Song Quest winner Jared Holt, Wellington tenor James Rodgers and Invercargill soprano Rebecca Ryan.
The concert will be conducted by visiting English conductor Simon Over, who leads the London Southbank Sinfonia.
"I believe passionately in getting music into people's lives and it's wonderful to make music with people all around the world," he said in Dunedin this week.
"It's a fantastic programme. Haydn was a giant of the classical era. He inspired Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms. His music is thrilling. It's good on an intellectual level and on a passionate level.
"Music has the power to change people's lives and it's up to us all to get it out to people. It's no good just playing well - you have to work at bringing people to hear it to complete the circle," he says.
"I particularly love watching young people hearing music for the first time, seeing the thrill they get from feeling the vibrations and the energy of the music.
"But I also love it when people who have practised a lot on their own have the joy of bringing their skill to the party and making music with others."
The Dunedin Town Hall concert will bring back especially fond memories for New York-based tenor James Rodgers.
"It was on that stage that I decided to pursue a career in singing," he recalls.
"I was the soloist for the Marlborough Boys College choir who, in 1999, made the finale of the Big Sing.
"All the participants were on the stage and the competition judge, whom I now know to have been Otago Uni voice teacher Judy Bellingham, approached me. At the time, not being very knowledgeable about the music scene, I had no idea who she was.
"She looked at me very seriously and said `Keep singing'. Judy probably can't even remember that brief moment, but for me, looking back, it was a huge turning point in sending me down the path I have taken.
"It will be funny to stand in that same place 10 years later."
Hear them
The Southern Sinfonia performs "The Glory of Haydn" at 8pm on Saturday in the Dunedin Town Hall. The programme is: Dances of Brittany (Larry Pruden), Symphony No 2 (Brahms) and Lord Nelson Mass (Haydn).
The New Zealand String Quartet performs "Haydn and the String Quartet" at 7.30pm on Tuesday in the Glenroy Auditorium. The programme is: Quartet in D Major Opus 64 No 5, The Lark; Quartet in G Minor Opus 74 No 3 The Rider; Quartet in F Minor Opus 20 No 5; Quartet in G Major Opus 77 No 1 Compliments.
