Programme notes by Guy Richardson
Francis Poulenc (1899-1963)
Trio for Oboe, Bassoon and Piano FP 43 (1926)
Lento – Presto
Andante con moto
Rondo: Très vif
Poulenc was born in Paris into a wealthy family of pharmaceutical manufacturers. He had piano lessons from the age of five from Continue reading Concert 20 November 2016 – Programme Notes
Heath Quartet seem so much part of the Coffee Concerts family already. So entirely apposite it was to find there at the table selling their two new CDs was cellist Chris Murray’s mother. They’ve never had CDs to sell here before. Their recently award-winning live Wigmore Hall double CD of all Michael Tippet’s Quartets came out in March, and their imminent Tchaikovsky Quartets disc was on offer a week before its actual release.
Where has this atmosphere of an audience being a family come from? Continue reading Heath Quartet 23rd October 2016 – Review by Richard Amey, Worthing Herald
I approach a concert by the Heath with the feeling that I’ve already said all there is to say about them. I love their technical abilities: ensemble, precision, delicacy, passion. I love their musicality and I like the way they look on stage, especially now they play standing. I love the way the two powerful players at the heart of the quartet balance the brilliant fluidity of the first violin and the solidity and Continue reading Heath Quartet 23rd October 2016 – Review by Andrew Polmear
This single movement presages the later quartets in its richness and variety of sonorities drawn from the four instruments. It is intense and disturbing in its opening and closing passages. The extreme energy is carried through from the first falling semitonal passage to the exuberantly rising contrasting central section. The abrupt shifts between angst and gentle lyricism are heard in this truly romantic aesthetic and they show Schubert’s writing for the quartet at its most inventive in 1820.
The Doric quartet performed this piece with great clarity and sophistication. We were swept along Continue reading Doric String Quartet 20th September 2016 – Review by Helen Simpson, (Schubert and Haydn)
This, together with the music of the 3rd Quartet, includes some of the most uncompromising music Bartok wrote, but despite the level of dissonance and sometimes harshness of textures, is full of his energy, intensity of expression and ultimately is gloriously life-affirming.
After a slightly tentative start, the first movement, marked Allegro, really took off and had a wonderful sense of forward drive and rhythmic energy. The coda was very exciting Continue reading Doric String Quartet 20th September 2016 – Review by Guy Richardson, (Bartok and Debussy)
First read the order of service!
Now you can imagine how the new Coffee Concert launch exploded into life. We were blitzed by Bartok 4 from a standing start as the Doric turned the tables on us with imaginative but calculating reverse concert planning.
Instead of an orthodox and commonplace academic chronological tour through four composers’ work, they turned the journey on its head Continue reading Doric String Quartet 20th September 2016 – Review by Richard Amey, Worthing Herald
