Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | English | String Quartet No. 4 in D major, Op.83

At Wigmore Hall, Quatuor Danel act as agent-provocateurs to make a persuasive case for the shared sensuous aesthetics of Shostakovich and Weinberg.

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

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. 

The impressive Amsterdam Sinfonietta showed lucidity and depth in Britten and Shostakovich, with tenor Ilker Arcayürek and horn player Felix Klieser adding much to the quality.

The Takács Quartet’s memorable performance was anchored by Grieg’s less-trodden string quartet, prefaced by works of Haydn and Shostakovich.

The Borodin Quartet seemed safely in their comfort zone with a selection of staple works from Shosatkovich and Beethoven. 

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. 

The Carducci Quartet’s appearance in the Holywell Music Room marked the halfway point in the Oxford Coffee Concert’s Autumn series. This late-morning concert saw the ensemble pair two D major quartets, from 1781 and 1949. It was the latter which received the more convincing performance, with the quartet clearly more engaged with Shostakovich’s troubled utterance than Haydn’s lean textures.

On Friday 26 August, Google chairman, Eric Schmidt, told a MediaGuardian Edinburgh International Television Festival audience, "Over the past century, the UK has stopped nurturing its polymaths. You need to bring art and science back together." The following morning, Russia's Kopelman Quartet opened their capacity crowd Queen's Hall concert with String Quartet No.