Coffee Concerts

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

Schubert  Quartettsazt  C minor D.703

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)

Béla Bartok String Quartet No 4 (1928)

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)

The Doric String Quartet tapped into something truly beautiful in the opening concert of Strings Attached’s 16/17 season. The night opened with Bartók: the quartet imbuing warmth and light into the dark but glorious tumult of his String Quartet No 4. Alex Redington’s quiet, subtle flurries on violin epitomised the quartet’s emotive, enjoyable performance of what might be considered a spiky piece by some.

Debussy’s String Quartet No 1 featured a striking and spirited attack in the first movement and the quartet brought the sheer lyricism of the piece to life in an enlivening performance. Cellist John Myerscough enthusiastically discussed their decision to perform Haydn last, explaining that the “king of the string quartet” should not be considered merely a pleasant opener but rather get the attention and framing he deserves. The exciting piece was vigorously played, a perfect ending to an inspired programme that showcased the diverse musical and emotional range of the string quartet form.