Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | String Quartet No. 2 in A major, Op.68

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. 

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. 

Dundee is on the final shortlist for the UK City of Culture 2017, and the final bid was given a rousing send-off by a large crowd in Tay Square outside the Caird Hall on 30 September.

The Scottish Ensemble’s tagline, “re-defining the string orchestra” could, in this particular programme, have justified the additional claim “re-defining the quartet”. The only work in this imaginatively conceived, four-item programme not written for quartet (or double quartet) was the opening Musical Postcard no. 4 by the young British composer Martin Suckling.

The string quartet is a peculiar beast in the classical music world. It takes a dash of talent, a sprinkling of luck, and a lot of social skills to make it in a professional, full-time string quartet. Many quartets are plagued with internal conflicts and member changes; however, the Lafayette Quartet seems to have defied the statistics in this category, almost miraculously.