Fitzwilliam String Quartet is represented by Rayfield Allied worldwide.

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Fitzwilliam String Quartet

Chamber Ensemble

  • This was the best performance of the Delius Quartet I have ever heard
    Eric Fenby
  • a triumph: the most revelatory version of the [Brahms Clarinet Quintet] I’ve heard in years; animated, dynamic, passionate…. I have no hesitation in naming this the new benchmark
    BBC Music Magazine
  • …The Fitzwilliam Quartet, whom I admire very much. Thank you for a superlative performance of my thirteenth quartet.
    BBC D. Shostakovich in a personal letter on his String Quartet No. 13
  • A chaste, inward reading [of the Seven Last Words], deeply musical and thoughtfully articulated……I’ll stick with this beautifully balanced new recording.
    Gramophone

  • The Fitzwilliam Quartet first sat down to play together as undergraduates during their inaugural term at Cambridge, in Autumn 1968. Their first concert appearance took place the following March, followed in June by their public debut at the Sheffield Arts Festival.

    After graduating in 1971, they went straight to their first professional appointment, as Resident Quartet at York University, where they quickly achieved worldwide recognition through their close association with Dmitri Shostakovich, who befriended them following a visit there to hear them play.

    The Fitzwilliam was one of the first of a long line of eminent quartets to have emerged under the guidance of Sidney Griller at the Royal Academy of Music, where they travelled from York every Monday for over three years. Since then they have performed across Britain, Europe, North America, the Far East, and Southern Africa, as well as making many award winning LPs/CDs for Decca and Linn.

    Today, over 40 years later, they are known for performing a wide repertoire on both early and modern instrument setups.

    Upcoming highlights for 2011/2012 and beyond include exciting new residencies at St. Andrews University, and at the Bucknell University in Pennsylvania and the Tuckamore Music Festival in Canada, as well as the Delius Anniversary concert at the Conway Hall on the occasion of the composer’s 150th birthday and concert tours of South Africa, Scotland and Italy.

    Fitzwilliam String Quartet is represented by Rayfield Allied worldwide.
    This biography is for information only and should not be reproduced.

    • Bruckner Quintet. Lakeside Arts Centre, Nottingham
      Djanogly Recital Hall, November 2011

      a revelation', 'performed with a flexible lyricism that has become a rare thing in Bruckner performance', 'Lucy Russell again presented the opening theme with full expression (exactly as marked ‘ausdrucksvoll’), and it was lovely to hear the second viola, James Boyd’s, brief imitative comment cast a slightly different light on the motive. Alan George introduced the second theme very beautifully indeed, with a wonderfully restrained tenderness which gave space for its more forthright repetition an octave lower by Heather Tuach’s always eloquent cello playing. The quiet closing pages of this movement were a testament to capabilities of the gut strings, the commitment of the players, and the profundity of Bruckner’s inspiration.
      Ken Ward, The Bruckner Journal
      How well their gut strings evoke the urban and rural Austria of his period should be just as evident from their CD as it was in the Djanogly Recital Hall.
      Peter Palmer, thisisnottingham.co.uk

    • Iffley Music Festival
      May 2011

      The quartet revealed a bright, muscular, and assertive sound as it embarked on one section of Haydn’s Seven Last Words.', 'The Fitzwilliams sound particularly well when playing quiet, reflective passages.', 'And indeed the Fitzwilliam’s performance emphasised the fact that there is a great deal more to this composer [Vaughan Williams] than hymn tunes and The Lark Ascending.', 'the Fitzwilliams delivered a commanding account of Schubert’s Death and the Maiden quartet. They produced the orchestral sound that Schubert wanted, with their playing running all the way from the yearning quality of the opening, to delicate variations in the second movement, to stormy power. The performance set the seal on an unusual and memorable concert.
      Giles Woodforde, The Oxford Times

    • Haydn Divertimento in C Op. 1, String Quartets Op. 71 No. 2 & Op. 77 No. 2
      Diversions DDV 24151

      An imaginative programme which places an early work alongside two mature masterpieces. The spontaneity of Haydn's musical invention is particularly well served by the energetic playing of the Fitzwilliam Quartet.
      Erik Levi, BBC Music Magazine February 2011
      sound quality is natural and well balanced throughout. I certainly recommend this CD as an example of how one can play period instruments and still sound involved and charming. If this is the beginning of a complete Haydn quartet series on Diversions, there may indeed be a goodly market for it down the road.
      Lynn René Bayley, Fanfare Magazine
      [Haydn] does, harmonically, with the little five-note tag in the development of Op 77’s first movement is miraculous, and I felt the Fitzwilliam might have taken it a fraction slower, to relish its riches. But the set as a whole is one to rejoice in.
      Sunday Times, 12th December 2010

    • Haydn Seven Last Words from the Cross
      Linn Records CKD 153

      A chaste, inward reading [of the Seven Last Words], deeply musical and thoughtfully articulated……I’ll stick with this beautifully balanced new recording.
      The Gramophone
      In this new recording [of The Seven Last Words] the members [of the FSQ] succeed fabulously well. This disc is an unmitigated delight…one of unrelenting beauty.
      Musical Heritage (USA)
      The Fitzwilliam quartet, on period instruments, give a superb performance of these marvellous pieces, conveying all the passion and poignancy in the music.
      Early Music News

    • Franck String Quartet
      Decca 028947684633

      A magnificent performance [of the Franck Quartet], superbly triumphing over the technical challenge with totally dedicated, passionately convincing playing; one of the finest chamber music records of the 1980s.
      Penguin Guide to Compact Discs

  • Fitzwilliam String Quartet Programmes

    THE LEGACY OF VIENNA
    • HAYDN - Divertimento in C major, Op.1/6
    • J STRAUSS - Tritsch-Tratsch Polka/Pizzicato Polka
    • BEETHOVEN - Grosse Fuge, Op.133
    • SCHUBERT - Quartet in D minor, D. 810 Death and the Maiden
    THE LEGACY OF VIENNA (2)
    • MOZART - Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, K. 525
    • WOLF - Italian Serenade
    • WEBERN - Bagatelles, Op.9
    • BRUCKNER - Quintet in F major (with Carolyn Sparey, viola)
    • OR
    • BRAHMS - Clarinet Quintet (with Lesley Schatzberger)
    SLAV PASSIONS
    • TCHAIKOVSKY - Youth pieces. Andante cantabile
    • SUK - Meditation on St.Wenceslas
    • BORODIN - Notturno
    • JANACEK - Quartet No.1, after L. Tolstoy's Kreutzer Sonata
    • GLAZUNOV - Alla Spagnuola
    • DVORAK - Quartet in F major, Op.96 American
    DEFINITIVE SHOSTAKOVICH
    • Quartet No.4
    • Quartet No.8
    • Quartet No.12
    SHOSTAKOVICH - STUDENT AND PROFESSOR
    • GLAZUNOV - Interludium in modo antico Op.15/3
    • SHOSTAKOVICH - Quartet No.11
    • SHNITTKE - Piano Quintet
    • RONALD STEVENSON - Recitative and Air, in memoriam Dmitri Shostakovich
    • SHOSTAKOVICH - Piano Quintet (with Anna Tilbrook)
    THE RUSSIAN TRADITION
    • BORODIN, GLAZUNOV, RIMSKY-KORSAKOV, and others: selections from Les Vendredis
    • SHOSTAKOVICH - Quartet No.1
    • TCHAIKOVSKY - Quartet No.2 in F major, Op.22
    THE RUSSIAN TRADITION (2)
    • GLAZUNOV - Alla Spagnuola, Op.15/1
    • SHNITTKE - canon in memory of I F Stravinsky
    • IPPOLITOV-IVANOV - Quartet No.1 in A minor
    • BORODIN - Quartet No.2 in D major
    THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE
    • PURCELL - Fantasia No.11, Chacony in G minor
    • VAUGHAN WILLIAMS - Quartet No.2
    • MICHAEL BLAKE - Quartet in memory of William Burton
    • GERSHWIN - Lullaby
    • IVES Arguments
    • GRAINGER - Molly on the Shore
    • BARBER - Quartet Op.11 (including Adagio for Strings)
    THE STRING QUARTET ON STAGE (Music by opera composers)
    • PURCELL - Music from Dido and Aeneas
    • PUCCINI - I Crisantemi
    • SHOSTAKOVICH - Elegy and Polka
    • VERDI - Quartet in E minor
    • DONIZETTI - La Morte del Marchese Giuseppe Terzi
    • TCHAIKOVSKY - Quartet in B flat (1865)
    • MOZART - Divertimento in D major, K.136
    HAYDN BI-CENTENARY
    • HAYDN - Quartet in C major, Op.33/3 The Bird
    • MOZART - Quartet in B flat, K.458 Hunt
    • JOHN MARSH - Quartet in B flat, after Haydn’s Op.1 No.1 (1795c)
    • HAYDN - Quartet in D major, Op.50/6 Frog
    SWAN SONGS
    • BEETHOVEN - Quartet in F major, Op.135
    • SHOSTAKOVICH - Quartet No.15
    • BORODIN - Scherzo (arr from Symphony No.3)
    • HAYDN - Quartet in F major, Op.77/2
    • BRAHMS - Clarinet Quintet in B minor, Op.115 with Lesley Schatzberger
    • MOZART - Quartet in F major, K.590 "Prussian'
    • FRANCK - Quartet in D major (1890)
    • JANACEK - Quartet No.2 'Intimate Pages' (1928)
    • SCHUBERT - Quintet in C major, D.956
    • with Moray Welsh
    • FAURE - Quartet in E minor, Op.121
    • MOZART LICHTENTHAL - Requiem in D minor, K.626

  • Photos

    • Photographer credit: Matthew Redding
      Photographer credit: Matthew Redding
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    • Photographer credit: Matthew Redding
      Photographer credit: Matthew Redding
      Download
    • Photographer credit: Matthew Redding
      Photographer credit: Matthew Redding
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