“Doric String Quartet keeps genre young and vital”
The group projects a sweet, finely blended tone, faultlessly deployed in Haydn’s slow movement, where first violinist Alex Redington found subtle colors to embellish a wistful little melody differently each time it returned.
The Washington Post
Library of Congress – November 2010
…and here was a performance of quite exceptional finesse, so soft-grained in its opening notes that you had to tune your ears to the theme that would later inspire the opening of Verdi’s Requiem, but invariably responsive to those sudden explosions of temper that became a feature of so many of Schubert’s masterpieces.
The Herald
Perth Schubertiade – October 2010
The English musicians certainly uncovered a plethora of unsuspected voices and colours in its Allegro di molto e scherzando. Leader Alex Redington imbued the Adagio with telling emotion, despite Haydn’s deceptively casual accompaniment. His daring, yet affecting, portamenti in its final bars seemed inevitable. After a Minuet, distinguished from its Trio in both tempo and tone, the Finale revealed that there is nothing like fugal banter to showcase a first-class ensemble.
New Zealand Herald
Auckland Town Hall – September 2010
This recital showed just why the Doric Quartet has recently been attracting so much praise. From the technical standpoint the players are superb, but, beyond that, they blend together as though of one mind – the touchstone of any such group.
www.classicalsource.com
Wigmore Hall – April 2010
At a time when new string quartets are two a penny, the Doric Quartet has cleared its first hurdles with impressive ease….Haydn served this week as launching-pad for its New Town Concert in Edinburgh….The finesse of the performance, in which nothing was over-emphasised, spoke for itself. The soft-grained detail of the first movement showed immediately why these players are going places.
The Herald
Queen’s Hall Edinburgh – March 2009
Making their York debut, last year’s winners of the Japan Osaka Competition, the Doric’s showed that they are today’s finest UK Quartet at a time when we are inundated with brilliant young ensembles….Technically they are superb, their account of Janacék’s highly charged, passionate and deeply emotional Intimate Letters capturing to perfection the enormous mood swings and massive dynamic range. They have the ability to play modern works with such deep understanding, yet can perform Haydn with a period awareness that is becoming all too rare. It is a wonderfully balanced ensemble with an uncommonly fine cello in John Myerscough, and a leader, Alex Redington, whose intonation is spotlessly clean. You only had to listen to their extraordinarily quiet ending to the slow movement in Beethoven’s Harp Quartet to know they are not afraid of taking risks.
Yorkshire Post
Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall – February 2009
The Doric String Quartet perform Haydn’s music with spirit, wit and sophistication at Wigmore Hall. Rating: *****
Haydn and the Doric are a perfect match. This is an ensemble, young but mature of insight, that plays Haydn’s music with spirit, illuminating its blend of wit and sophistication, grace and vivacity, cunning and seemingly effortless spontaneity…. The Doric’s performances, without exaggeration but with just the right degree of elucidation, revealed the music’s extraordinary originality and the way that Haydn can explore the potential of his thematic material so thoroughly yet so artlessly…. Unequivocally, these were performances of terrific panache and perception, seeming to get right under the skin of Haydn’s creative genius.
The Sunday Telegraph
Wigmore Hall – January 2009
The players moved together with absolute unanimity, like a great sea anemone, and this was reflected in the unity of their sound. There was great wisdom and no self-indulgence to the slow movement of the Beethoven, as well as a creativity of sound, with restatements of the same phrase coloured differently each time…Earlier in the programme, the players had given a magical performance of Haydn’s op.76 No.1…I found their performances the most inventive, engaging, moving and beautiful.
The Strad
Borciani Competition – October 2008
Performing Haydn’s op. 76 no. 1, the English Doric Quartet were distinguished by a rare grace, an abandon to the time of the soul, and a magnificent ability to maintain the “pianissimo”.
La Stampa
Borciani Competition – July 2008
Powerful, passionate and precise…The Doric String Quartet triumphed in their German debut.
Nordkurier
Festspiele Mecklenburgh-Vorpommern – July 2008
It was more than just perfect interaction, which formed a foundation for the greatest function of deliberate artistic ambition. It is not often that one can experience dynamic contrast so uncompromisingly sharp as one could in Beethoven’s first born quartet (F op.18/1), rarely can one encounter this work with such dynamic spirit and directness as if taken by surprise…This was an impressive evening.
Ostsee-Zeitung
Festspiele Mecklenburgh-Vorpommern – July 2008
They brought it all to Brahms’s C minor Quartet, Op.51 with vigorous, wonderfully authoritative playing in which breathlessness seemed a virtue and lyrical intensity its happy result.
South Wales Argus
Riverfront Theatre, Newport – April 2008
The Doric String Quartet offered playing of refinement and polish throughout the substantial programme of their recital at Wigmore Hall. Since their formation in 1998, the members of this accomplished ensemble have evolved into a streamlined performing unit…If Schubert’s Death and the Maiden Quartet is a more familiar recital item, it sounded newly-minted in the taut, committed performance it received from the Doric Quartet, who launched into the opening Allegro with zest and dedication and delivered playing of a scale and mastery that this great movement calls for.
Musical Opinion
Wigmore Hall – January/February 2007
This was a really fine concert, interestingly programmed and exceptionally involving in the way it was played. The Doric is a quartet to watch.
The Daily Telegraph
Wigmore Hall – January 2004
Great understanding of the ambivalence and mystery of [Beethoven’s Opus 127... the Dorics] will be among the big names before long.
Manchester Evening News
Chester Festival – July 2004
The exceptional Doric String Quartet – average age 20 -… gave a ravishing and soberingly mature account of Zemlinsky’s Third Quartet.
The Observer
PLG Series at the Purcell Room – January 2002