The Orion String Quartet: from left, Daniel Phillips, Todd Phillips, Timothy Eddy and Steven Tenenbom at the 92nd Street Y. Credit: Julieta Cervantes for the New York Times.
The Orion String Quartet recently celebrated its 20th anniversary by repeating the program it played at the 92nd Street Y for its New York recital debut in March 1989. Vivien Schweitzer of the New York Times was in attendance and duly impressed:
The concert opened with an enjoyable performance of Haydn’s String Quartet in C (Op. 74, No. 1), which the quartet played with energetic brio and graceful poise.
A noisy standing ovation is nothing rare, and these players certainly deserved theirs after the stellar performance of the Bartok. But silence can be an even better indicator of a powerful performance. At a few moments on Thursday — after the Adagio in the Mendelssohn, for one — the musicians managed to seduce the rustling, coughing, whispering audience into utterly silent awe.
They return in May with cellist Steven Isserlis and pianist Jeremy Denk for a Family Concert to explore the world of Joseph Haydn.
Pianist Paul Lewis was on the receiving end of no small praise from the Times as well for his performance with the London Symphony Orchestra at Lincoln Center.
Friday night’s concert began with a magisterial account of Beethoven’s rhapsodic and elusive Fourth Concerto, with the remarkable young English pianist Paul Lewis as soloist. A lanky young man, Mr. Lewis could have had a little more power in his fortissimos; back home in England, he should bulk up on Weetabix at breakfast. Still, the delicacy, clarity, supple phrasing and bursts of impetuosity in his playing were consistently impressive.
