"The Doric String Quartet expressively explores Britten and Purcell."

Nominee for Chamber Recording of the Year Award 2019

“Superbly played rumination on meeting of musical minds.” ****

“… enthralling performances … as fresh and immediate as they were live… The Dorics (with violinist Hélène Clément playing Britten’s viola) captures every mood, from steely to poetic to tragic, the structure of each work ever clear. Essential listening.”

“Britten’s own viola takes centre stage in the composer’s quartets.”

Editor’s Choice – Chamber

“… The performances are all superbly judged and controlled, balancing fragility with strength, restraint with great depth of feeling… this is a major cycle, engaging and profound in equal measure, and you need to hear it.”

Performance *****     Recording *****

“… Throughout, the Dorics show an extraordinary affinity with these highly idiomatic, eventful and hauntingly beautiful works… this is an exceptionally fine album which deserves all plaudits and surely an award or two.”

“This is a splendid way for the members of the Doric Quartet to enter their third decade, for they have done nothing better on record… The recordings, produced and engineered by Jonathan Cooper with assistance from Cheryl Jessop and Rosanne Fish, and edited by Cooper, are absolutely splendid, airy enough but with the cello line always audible in the Maltings acoustic. The Doric Quartet’s performances are good enough to withstand any comparisons … these are the performances that have specially caught my ear. “   *****

Album of the Week

“… With Britten’s earlier Three Divertimenti (1936) and D major quartet, Op 25, and his final work, the G major quartet, Op 94 (completed, with the help of Colin Matthews, shortly before his death in 1976), this is a small but substantial contribution to the canon, comparable in its emotional intensity — certainly as played, electrifyingly, here by the Doric String Quartet … The long Chacony of Op 36, with its solo cadenzas for three instruments, is especially poignant, as Hélène Clément plays the composer’s own viola.”