Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | English | String Quartet No. 13 in B flat minor, Op.138

A tasting menu of string quartet movements interspersed with readings made for an absorbing afternoon. 

An elegiac farewell as the Emerson String Quartet – retiring next year – close their Shostakovich cycle at the Southbank Centre. 

The Brodsky Quartet deliver deeply moving performances of all 15 Shostakovich string quartets, with added value and insight from writers Elizabeth Wilson and Marina Frolova-Walker. 

How does an admirer of Shostakovich's symphonic works react to a performance of two of his string quartets? Well, if it's the Borodin Quartet that is playing, the experience will most definitely be a changing experience. 

Performed chronologically in the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, The Globe’s candlelit Jacobean theatre, the 15 Shostakovich string quartets made an astonishing impression in such concentrated form.