Doric String Quartet
·· Alex Redington, Violin
·· Jonathan Stone, Violin
·· Hélène Clément, Viola
·· John Myerscough, Cello
HAYDN String Quartet in B-flat Major, Op. 64, No. 3
DONNACHA DENNEHY The weather of it (US Premiere, co-commissioned by Carnegie Hall)
BEETHOVEN String Quartet in E Minor, Op. 59, No. 2, "Razumovsky"
Lead support for the 125 Commissions Project is provided by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Public support for the 125 Commissions Project is provided by the National Endowment for the Arts.
Additional funding is provided by members of Carnegie Hall's Composer Club.
Haydn’s 68 string quartets virtually created the chamber-music genre that would occupy a central place in 19th-century European music and musical life. The six Op. 64 quartets date from 1790, shortly before he embarked on the first of two extended trips to London as the most famous composer in Europe. By the time he composed his two Op. 77 quartets nine years later, he was ready to pass the baton to his erstwhile student, Beethoven.
Donnacha Dennehy’s sonorously adventurous music resists tidy classification. Long associated with new-music groups like Ireland’s Crash Ensemble and New York’s Bang on a Can, he has explored his Irish roots in such recent works as The Dark Places (to a text by novelist Colm Tóibín) and the chamber opera The Hunger. In his latest string quartet, The weather of it, Dennehy puts the musical material through a process of “condensing and evaporating,” recalling the changeable weather in his native country.
The three quartets that Beethoven composed in 1806 for Russian Count Andrey Razumovsky marked a turning point both in his stylistic development and in the evolution of the string quartet. They also exerted a seminal influence on composers like Schumann, Mendelssohn, and Brahms. Like its companions, the E-Minor “Razumovsky” Quartet illustrates the boldly iconoclastic style of Beethoven’s so-called middle period.
The Doric String Quartet has firmly established itself as the leading British string
quartet of its generation, receiving enthusiastic responses from audiences and critics
across the globe.
Highlights of this season include the quartet's debut appearance at Carnegie Hall, which
includes the US premiere of Donnacha Dennehy's The weather of it, co-commissioned for the
quartet by Carnegie Hall and Wigmore Hall. The quartet continues to raise its profile in
Germany, France, the Netherlands, and Israel, where it returns for concerts in Jerusalem,
Haifa, and Tel Aviv. Other highlights include four appearances at Wigmore Hall, a weekend
of performances at Perth Concert Hall, and recitals in Edinburgh, Oxford, and Brighton. The
quartet also continues its long-standing relationship with the Wiltshire Music Centre in
England, and returns to the Jersey Arts Centre (UK) and West Cork Chamber Music
Festival.
In 2009, the Doric String Quartet's first CD, Korngold: The String Quartets, was
released to critical acclaim on the Wigmore Live label and was named Editor's Choice in
Gramophone; it was followed by Walton: String Quartets, which was
nominated for a 2011 Gramophone Award. Since 2010, the quartet has recorded exclusively for
Chandos Records. The ensemble's 2011 release, Schumann: Three String Quartets, Op.
41, was named CD of the month in both Gramophone and BBC Music
Magazine, and was also shortlisted for a 2012 Gramophone Award. In 2015, Haydn:
String Quartets, Op. 20 was named Editor's Choice by Gramophone and shortlisted for a
Gramophone Award.
The Doric String Quartet was formed in 1998 at Pro Corda, the UK's leading chamber music
organization. Its members studied at the Paris-based ProQuartet professional training
program, and later at the City of Basel Music Academy. In 2015, the Doric String Quartet
was appointed Teaching Quartet in Association at the Royal Academy of Music in London.
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