“It was a special privilege to hear the dynamic Alexander
performances in Baruch College’s intimate 176-seat auditorium. Seldom
have these anguished, playful, ironic and masterly works
[Shostakovich quartet cycle] seemed so profoundly personal.”
THE NEW YORK TIMES
“The intimacy of the music came through with enhanced power and
poignancy in the Alexander quartet’s vibrant, probing, assured and
aptly volatile performances. … The chance to experience all 15
[Shostakovich] quartets played in chronological order with such
intensity and engrossing commitment in a perfect chamber music hall was
a privilege.”
THE NEW YORK TIMES
“The Alexander players expertly gave the erratic dances of the final
missive [of Janáček’s “String Quartet No. 2 “Intimate Letters”]
just the right sense of being offkilter. It is this rhythmic
awkwardness that leads to the final thoughts of death, of being out of
sync with the universe. This is extremely difficult music to pull
off, but the Alexander ensemble rallied for a thrilling conclusion.”
NEW YORK SUN
“This is a group deep in its element, firm in its stride.”
LOS ANGELES TIMES
“They played as a tight group, carefully responding to each other,
balancing lines, mirroring attacks. At times, they were as
ferociously impressive as a small group of precision fighter pilots
going through aerial maneuvers at breakneck speeds.”
LOS ANGELES TIMES
“They were, to put it simply, terrific of tone, virtuosity and
balance. The general quality level, as well as all the
particulars of communicative virtuosity, place the Alexander Quartet
right up there with the best on today’s international scene.”
SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
“The Alexander String Quartet is one of those estimable groups who
treat both composers and audiences with uncommon respect. What
commanded attention was the Alexander’s complete absorption in the
piece at hand. You never got the feeling that these were mere
score readings, but part of the organization’s living repertoire.
Then, too, the Alexanders command an extraordinarily chameleonic
sound. It can be buttery smooth and even viscous, in the old
world European manner, or, it can turn spiky and urgent in the American
style when a score demands that kind of attack.”
SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER
“The Alexander String Quartet combines the spark of youth with a
singleness of purpose usually reserved for more seasoned
ensembles. The musicians’ controlled exuberance was unflagging
and consequently produced superlative accounts of Beethoven,
Bartók and Mendelssohn.”
THE WASHINGTON POST
“The musicians’ controlled exuberance was unflagging and consequently
produced superlative accounts of Beethoven.”
THE WASHINGTON POST
Dream-come-true performances from the excellent Alexander String Quartet
“As they did during the Haydn Quartet that opened the concert, the
players impressed with their sure ensemble, lyricism, accurate pitch,
handsome sound and technical fluidity.”
THE BOSTON GLOBE
“The Alexander String Quartet, born in the 1980s, has developed a
distinctive musical profile and bold performing style. In its concert
Tuesday at Richardson Auditorium, the ensemble played an Old World
program with a balance of nuance, intensity and style that some senior
quartets could envy. Beethoven’s Quartet in C major (Op. 59, No. 3)
asked the riskiest comparisons with senior quartets, yet this
performance needed no explanation. The second movement and the minuetto
that follows were played to emphasize the almost hypnotic inner
intensity of the music. The hush in the hall attested to the
almost perfectly executed floating passage and its expressive strength.”
THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER
“A performance of Mozart’s Quartet in C, K. 465, called the “Dissonant”
Quartet, completed the Mozart tribute with a performance that balanced
seriousness of intent with a lightness of texture, all of which imbued
the music with a luminous clarity. … The Alexander musicians were
so in control of the music’s emotional contours and lurches, and so
spiritually attuned to Shostakovich’s message that they seemed not so
much to be playing the music as breathing it.”
BUFFALO NEWS
“The Alexander demonstrated a remarkable ability to sustain a long,
slow line. … ‘Must it be?’ was played with the necessary sense of
inevitability that Beethoven’s ringing, affirmative answer, both to the
question, and to the contradictions of the human condition, ‘It must
be!’ demands.
THE BUFFALO NEWS
“I have rarely heard a quartet create such orchestral sonorities, and
with such little forcing of tone. The Alexander brought passion
in spades to this reading of Schubert’s ‘Death and the Maiden’
quartet. This was a splendid ‘Maiden,’ in which vigor did not
subdue finer points.”
ST. LOUIS POST DISPATCH
“The gem of the evening was Janáček’s Quartet No. 1. The
Alexander players reveled in the heightened expressive qualities of
Janáček’s intense score. Riding its many technical
challenges with seeming ease, the ensemble made much of the
supercharged harmonies and speech-like motifs. With Ravel’s
exquisite Quartet in F major, the Alexander Quartet has great
affinity. This was a caring, colorful interpretation, in which
not a measure went by without definition and character.”
PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE
“Impressive power and lyricism.”
THE DENVER POST
“The Alexander Quartet’s direct and non-rhetorical approach [to
Shostakovich] finds the individual character of each score, allowing
the music to speak for itself, forcefully and eloquently. … Their
voicings, shadings, and attacks are dramatic, colorful, and totally
convincing in context. Most important, they are well-matched
players, bringing an equanimity, and thus clarity, to inner voices,
counterpoint, and contrasting rhythms.”
FANFARE
“An extraordinary set [of recordings of Mozart’s quartets dedicated to
Haydn]. … Some of the most arresting playing of these works that
I have encountered.”
FANFARE
“The quartet manages to combine a robust, cohesive ensemble tone with a
lively sense of color and a deep, unshakable poise. It was a
performance in which the care that went into their preparation was
completely subsumed in the conviction of the living moment. One
could only agree with Yehudi Menuhin’s unrestrained assessment:
‘It was unbelievably good Beethoven-in conception, musicality, balance
of voices, respect for the score, humor, pathos, emotional projection.
There was absolutely nothing that was missing.’ ”
MUSICAL AMERICA
“They have much more of a European approach, in the sense that ensemble
balance and a natural flow of ideas appears to matter more to them than
overt virtuosity. In Mendelssohn’s F minor quartet, Op. 80, they
managed to convey the emotional intensity without resorting to any of
the hardness of tone or forced tempi so often employed by young
ensembles to peddle passion.”
THE TORONTO STAR
“The ensemble’s strength resides in its discipline and polished
precision — in neatly articulated rhythms, unfussy phrasing and bright
but smoothly blended sound.”
VANCOUVER SUN
“Stunning Ensemble: On the evidence of their Beethoven Op. 59, No. 2,
this is a group whose synthesis of strongly characterized individual
voices is resilient enough to take inspiring risks, and sophisticated
enough to see them through with imaginative sensitivity.”
THE TIMES (London)
“They attained a rare sense of mystery and expectation in the
elliptical moderations and silent bars of the first movement, summoned
warmth and severity for the slow movement and a compelling gusto for
the finale. Every change of tempo was geared perfectly to the dramatic
implications of the music. The Alexander Quartet is destined for
greatness.”
THE GUARDIAN (London)
“These musicians have a sophisticated grasp of quartet-playing. They
perform with an in-built awareness of each colleague’s line, in terms
of both phrasing and colouring. Tones are blended, there is a delicate
facility to the bowing and a unanimous ebb and flow to the
delivery. They also have a sensitive ear for balance, gradating
their sound-levels tactfully. Such general urbanity was
much in evidence for Beethoven’s overblown A major Quartet from his Op.
18. Most memorable for compositional quality was the Andante’s charming
Viennese mix of inwardness and self-confidence, but the Alexander’s
committed integrity of approach was a joy.”
THE BIRMINGHAM POST (U.K.)
“Spontaneity, Pleasure and Courage with the Alexander String Quartet:
With unusual enthusiasm and refined musicality, the members of this
sympathetic quartet try together to recreate the essence of the
music. They make music with a remarkable joy in playing.
They attempt to really say something with every note.”
NRC HANDELSBLAD (The Netherlands)
“And it’s Beethoven who carries them to their maximum-literature more
solid, loaded with the past as well as the future, with violence as
well as tenderness. This work allows them to be in the very center of
their sensitivity. Splendid sonorities from each player (the first
violin with a marvelous purity of line responds to a superb cello),
perfect balance of purpose, perfect communication in the group,
technical clarity, and unusual intensity; the golden rules of the
quartet are brought together to perfection. And along with this,
intelligence to bring forth the magic. Beethoven has rarely been so
cast with elegance, with density, and with fullness. An example of
interpretation beyond what’s in fashion, beyond musical egocentricity,
in the very heart of a truth which flows from the mother spring.”
LA TRIBUNE DE GENEVE
(Switzerland)