The London-based Doric String Quartet is making its fourth visit to Australia, this time joined by award-winning Adelaide-based clarinettist Lloyd Van’t Hoff for a seven-city national tour. 

The first half of the program consists of rarified works by Britten and Adès, balanced by a substantive Beethoven String Quartet in the second half – cleverly crafted program that demonstrates the players’ technical skill and artistry across three diverse works. The music leaps off the page – as do the artists themselves at times, from their chairs – in an exciting and enthralling concert. 

Doric String Quartet & Lloyd Van’t Hoff (centre). Photo © Alex Jamieson

The first movement of Britten’s Three Divertimenti for String Quartet, The March, gets off to a breathless rhythmic start, with clearly articulated glissandi and pizzicato tumbling over previous instrumental notes with alacrity and accuracy.

The second movement, Waltz, offers a swooning melodic theme, superbly maintained by John Myerscough’s pizzicato cello, while quirky individual touches are expertly delivered by Maia Cabeza and Ying Xue’s violins and Emma Wernig’s viola. Fun, exciting and very lively, the movement sparkles throughout.

Burlesque, with its raucous and comic overtones, sees all four instruments playing rhythmically at speed, showcasing perfect ensemble dynamics and crisply articulated pizzicato. It is an impressive composition that highlights each player’s impeccable technique and musicianship.

Adès’ recently composed Alchymia is written for string quartet and basset clarinet, an instrument with a deeper range and more expansive vocal quality than the standard clarinet. Inspired by life in London, it unfolds as a sensory journey through multiple moods and characteristics, its four movements offering a remarkable range of harmonic, melodic and textural sonorities, alongside constant shifts in tempo and dynamics. Beautiful and mesmerising – at times disturbingly dark, too – the work presents considerable challenges, which these players meet magnificently.

Doric String Quartet & Lloyd Van’t Hoff (left). Photo © Alex Jamieson

The haunting, ethereal clarinet over strings in A Sea-Change is richly and warmly played by Van’t Hoff. The Woods So Wild changes the opening pace to a fast if light scherzo, with lyrical vibrating strings that shimmered and high, evocative clarinet notes that run swiftly up and down the instrument’s keys.

The slower, melancholic movement of Lacrymae shows the strings off to perfection with the warm textures of a Baroque-styled ensemble. Here the clarinet excels, rising plaintively above the strings in a perfectly delivered performance. Hoff’s ringing top notes are followed by the deep bass of his instrument – a mixture of sweetness with a sombre resonance that is highly emotive.

Divisions on a Lute Song references Jack the Ripper, starting with bold, buoyant notes that gave way to a dark underbelly of violin screeches. Meanwhile, the clarinet weaves in and out of the strings with skilful alacrity, the mix of glissandi and pizzicato effects discordant yet also offering a playful sonority to the clarinet. It is a marvellously impressive work and  immaculately played.   

Doric String Quartet will be recording all of Beethoven’s String Quartets in coming months and presents his String Quartet in F major, Op. 59 in this concert. This performance bodes well for the monumental task ahead. 

Doric String Quartet & Lloyd Van’t Hoff (centre). Photo © Alex Jamieson

Doric’s work is revelatory in this piece, giving it a strong point of difference to many other interpretations. With a clearly articulated view, great attention to detail and working seamlessly together, the musicians demonstrate the variety of moods in Beethoven’s middle period. 

Over the four movements the players demonstrate immense joy and delight during the upbeat Allegro and Allegretto movements. Conversely, they reveal a deep commitment to the composer’s serious nature in the mournful Adagio movement, while producing an impressive ferocity of sound in the many repetitions of the Thème Russe.

Virtuosic playing, vibrancy of tone, sparkling musical colours and harmonic precision are all on display. The whole is a joyous ride with the players firmly engrossed and committed from beginning to end.   

Musica Viva Australia presents Doric String Quartet & Lloyd Van’t Hoff at Melbourne Recital Centre (16 June); Llewellyn Hall, Canberra (19 June); City Recital Hall, Sydney (22 June), Newcastle City Hall (23 June), Adelaide Town Hall (25 June) and the Regal Theatre, Perth on 28 June.