Classical Salamanca ~ Villa Lobos & Ginastera

Welcome to our Classical Salamanca 2025 series, live in the Peacock Theatre.
Salamanca Arts Centre presents three String Quartets: by Hector Villa Lobos, Albert Ginastera, and Tasmanian composer, Tom Misson.

Tuesday 7th October 2025
Doors & bar open at 6:30pm
Music commences at 7pm 

The Peacock Theatre
Salamanca Arts Centre
[ Enter via the main doors at 77 Salamanca Place ]

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In this concert of two Brazilian composers; Villa-Lobos and Albert Ginastera, the quartet will also perform the world premiere of Tasmanian composer, Tom Misson's String Quartet No 1, performed by an ensemble of some of Tasmania's best and most highly-regarded musicians, including:
(Violins) Peter Tanfield and Phoebe Masel
(Violas) Damien Holloway, and William Hewer (Vc).

Tickets are only $15+BF for School Students (up to 18 years of age). Adults' tickets are $39+BF, or $35+BF for concession card holders, with a further discount offered to SAC Associate members.

Peter Tanfield was born in England in 1961 and started the violin aged four. He studied in Germany, Israel, Switzerland and Holland where his teachers were Igor Ozim, Felix Andrievski, Alberto Lysy, Herman Krebbers and Yehudi Menuhin.
He was a prize-winner at The Carl Flesch International Competition, International Mozart Competition, International Bach Competition amongst others.   As soloist and chamber musician he has played throughout Europe, China, Japan, India, Canada, the Middle East, Africa, USA, and USSR. He has recorded numerous solo and chamber works for television and radio as well as CD. He has played for Chairman Deng in China and the Sultan of Oman.

As soloist Peter has appeared with many major orchestras; the Philharmonia, City of London Sinfonia, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, West German Radio Orchestra, Radio Symphony Orchestra of the RAI in Rome, Scottish Chamber Orchestra.
As concertmaster, he has had extensive experience working with BBC Philharmonic, RSO RAI Roma, West German Radio Orchestra, London Sinfonietta, Scottish Chamber Orchestra. Some of the artists and composers he has worked and performed with: Astor Piazzolla, Charlie Watts, Pinchas Zukerman, Yehudi Menuhin, Charles Wuorinen, Arvo Paert, Graeme Koehne, Gary Carr, Itzhak Perlman.
Some of the conductors he has worked with are Carlo Maria Giulini, Claudio Abbado, Charles Dutoit, Louis Fremaux, Richard Hickox, Heinz Wallberg, Jun-Ichi Hirokami, John Adams, Oliver Knussen, Paavo Jaervi, Martin Brabbins, Gary Bertini, Georg Solti, Pierre Boulez, Simon Rattle.

Peter has been active as a teacher in Britain, Spain, Germany, Switzerland and Australia organizing, coordinating and delivering courses and chamber music programmes for festivals and youth organizations.
From 2002 to 2008 he was lecturer in violin and ensemble at the Tasmanian Conservatorium of Music, University of Tasmania. He was also Artistic Director of the Tasmanian Senior Youth Orchestra and the Derwent Symphony Orchestra, and has been Artistic Advisor to the Hobart Chamber Orchestra. Peter came to Australia in 1998 to lead the Australian String Quartet.  Until he left in November 2001 he dedicated himself to the quartet’s development and teaching at the university of Adelaide, expanding the ensemble’s national profile, making two films for the ABC and becoming the Artistic Director of the Adelaide Chamber Orchestra.

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This concert at Salamanca Arts Centre is supported by Arts Tasmania's 2025 Arts Projects Fund.
Salamanca Arts Centre is grateful for this support via Arts Tasmania and the Minister for the Arts.

Program Notes:

Villa-Lobos String Quartet No 1

Villa-Lobos’s String Quartet No 1 was written in Fribourgo, 1915.  Or was it? 
The version we hear today is Villa-Lobos's 1946 re-write of the Suíte Graciosa from 1915.  Though, according to eminent musicologist, Eero Tarasti, that "Musical analysis supports the hypothesis that it really is a work of youth. In the First String Quartet the Brazilianism is manifested rather mildly.  The work is, in fact, a series of small mood pictures (somewhat in the style of Nepomuceno and Levy)" - Tarasti (1995).

The work is in six movements:

1. Cantilena - Andante

2. Brincadeira - Allegretto Scherzando

3. Canto Lirico - Moderato

4. Canconeta - Andantino quasi Allegretto

5. Melancolia - Lento

6. Saltando como um Saci - Allegro 

Tarasti continues, “The potpourri form of the First Quartet refers to the Suite populaire brasileira (for guitar) from the same time." 

The premiere of SQ#1 was at the Friburgo home of Brazilian composer Homero Barreto.

Ginastera's String Quartet No 1

Albert Ginastera wrote his First String Quartet in Buenos Aires, during 1948. This work was awarded the “Carlo Lopez Buchardo” prize that same year in the first national competition for composers organised by the Wagnerian Society of Buenos Aires in memory of the Argentine composer Lopez Buchardo. The work was first performed in the Wagnerian Society the following year, and was selected by the International Society for Contemporary Music for its XXVth Festival program in Frankfurt (1951); on that occasion it was performed by the Koechert Quartet.

The work consists of the usual four movements – Allegro, Scherzo, Adagio and Rondo – wherein rhythms of Argentine folk music can still be perceived through a re-creation of an imaginary folklore. “In this Quartet”, said Ginastera, “I find that some characteristics of my own artistic personality materialize for the first time: strong and incisive rhythms, adagios that are anxiety-ridden, lyrical and contemplative and atmospheres that are mysterious, nocturnal and surrealistic”.

This concert program also includes the World Premiere performance of the String Quartet No 1 by Tasmanian composer, Tom Misson.