At the opening night of Richard Strauss’ Salome at the Stadtheatre in Graz in 1906, an extraordinary dinner party took place. The world and its music was changing, and the participants of the dinner party – Puccini, Schoenberg, Zemlinsky, Berg, Mahler, Webern, and Strauss – were at the forefront of music at this volatile time.
In this brilliant performance Ensemble Q musically re-creates that dinner party and highlights the sometimes astonishing disparity of works written around that time. It was the meeting between deep romanticism and atonality, between deep set tradition and breaking of boundaries to allow freedom of artistic expression.
The program features the stark beauty of solo and duo works by Anton Webern, Alban Berg and Arnold Schoenberg alongside the rich romanticism of Richard Strauss’ fertile and pictorially imaginative Piano Quartet, Giacomo Puccini’s exquisite string quartet Crisantemi and Gustav Mahler’s Song of the Wayfarer, arranged for chamber ensemble by his dinner party comrade Arnold Schoenberg and performed at The Dinner Party by guest artist, Opera Queensland baritone Shaun Brown.
The delectable desserts feature Alexander von Zemlinsky’s Humoreske for wind quintet, and Till Eulenspiegel Einmal Anders! by Strauss/Hasenöhrl.

Program
Arnold Schoenberg – Six Little Piano Pieces Op 19
Giacomo Puccini – Crisantemi
Anton Webern – Three Little Pieces for Cello and Piano, Op 11
Alexander von Zemlinsky – Humoreske (Rondo) for wind quintet
Alban Berg – Four Pieces for Clarinet and Piano Op 5
Gustav Mahler – Song of the Wayfarer, arr Schoenberg
Interval
Richard Strauss – Piano Quartet in C minor Op 13
Richard Strauss – Till Eulenspiegel Einmal Anders!

Presented by Ensemble Q and QPAC
Recorded at QPAC’s Concert Hall for Digital Stage.

About Ensemble Q
Ensemble Q is celebrated as one of Australia’s leading ensembles. Proudly Company in Residence at QPAC, they have been selected as national and regional touring artists for Musica Viva, appear regularly throughout the year as featured artists on ABC Classic and have performed at major festivals including the Australian Festival of Chamber Music, the Queensland Music Trails’ Opera at Jimbour, Brisbane Music Festival, Brisbane Festival, Queensland Music Festival, Bellingen Music Festival, and George Town Festival in Penang.

They are regularly invited to perform at the coveted Ukaria Cultural Centre in South Australia and have a strong Sydney-based audience. Their core members are drawn from Principal and Concertmaster seats in the QSO and leading faculty of Queensland Conservatorium and University of Queensland. They conduct their major series in QPAC’s Concert Hall in partnership with QPAC, and their boutique Underground series is consistently sold out well in advance.

Ensemble Q also partners with Opera Queensland, 4MBS Classic FM, the Lisa Gasteen National Opera Program and the Queensland Choir in the formation of a training orchestra to support productions by these companies and provide paid student placements alongside the highest level professional musicians.