THE FSQ STORY

The 2009/2010 season looks back to one evening, forty years ago, when four first-year Cambridge undergraduates marched down the aisle of the Wolfson Hall at Churchill College to embark not only on the Tchaikovsky No.1, but also on what has proven to be four decades of distinguished quartet playing.

Undoubtedly it was their much documented Shostakovich connection which first catapulted them into the public eye, only a year into their Residency at York University: following the composer's widely reported train journey north to hear their British première of his thirteenth quartet their friendship (the composer’s own word!) prospered through correspondence, and the arrival of the next two quartets when they were finished. At the time of his death, in August 1975, plans had already been finalised for them to spend a week with him in Moscow, only a month or so later. Just before his own death Benjamin Britten later reported to them that Shostakovich had told him the Fitzwilliam were his “preferred performers of my quartets”. Having introduced his last three quartets to the West, they soon became the first ever group to record and perform all fifteen – complete cycles were given in a number of major centres, including London, New York, and Montréal. The recordings (now reissued for a third time) gained many international awards – including the very first Gramophone Award for chamber music (in 1977) and inclusion in the same magazine’s “Hundred Greatest-ever Recordings” (November 2005) – securing for them a world wide concert schedule and a long term contract with Decca.

If the quartet’s reputation was originally fostered by the Shostakovich connection, they are at pains to avoid resting on those particular laurels, and the subsequent exploration of masterworks from less familiar regions of the repertoire has long given their concert programmes and discography a recognisably unconventional look. Additionally they have always been enthusiastic in accepting the responsibility of promoting music of their own generation: the hotbed of New Music at York was a starting point, resulting in over 40 additions to the new century’s repertoire. It was also the university’s reputation for historical performance studies which encouraged them to carry an extra set of instruments for earlier repertoire – they remain one of the very few string quartets in Britain using period instruments, making them unique in that they perform on both early and modern set-ups (sometimes within the same concert!).

The Fitzwilliam had first been appointed Quartet-in-Residence at York (succeeding the Amadeus) on graduating from Cambridge in 1971, and remained there until 1986 (apart from three years at Warwick from 1974), enabling them to concentrate full time on quartet and academic work. In 1978 their university connections were extended to the USA, where they became Affiliate Artists at Bucknell, Pennsylvania. Their achievements were recognised there through Honorary Doctorates of Music – conferred in 1981 by Shostakovich’s son, Maxim. To complete the circle, they are now ten years into a new Residency, back at Fitzwilliam College Cambridge! Last year they began an association with Southern Sinfonia – a group which functions as a symphony, chamber, or baroque orchestra – with whom they play as section principals and soloists.

Highlights of the past season include participating in Martin Randall Travel's celebratory marathon of the complete Haydn string quartets at the Castle Hotel Taunton. Other highlights have included concerts at the Cambridge Darwin Festival, a tour to Slovenia with soprano Susanna Ograjensek, two tours of Scotland which culminated with a performance of the Schubert Cello Quintet with cellist Moray Welsh and our second Martin Randall Travel cruise from Athens to Istanbul – this taking in a number of ancient amphitheatres en route (most spectacularly, Ephesus). Other recent travels have taken them to Munich, where they took part in an international dance film featuring Shostakovich's last three quartets, as well as bi-annual visits to St Petersburg, Russia, which have included concerts in Pushkin's House, the Sheremetev Palace, the Summer Palace at Peterhof, as well as at Agora – former home of Modest and Pyotr Tchaikovsky. For most of their career they have been making regular trips to the USA, two of the most recent featuring marathon events in Lorin Maazel’s private concert hall at his farm in Virginia.

Future plans include being artists-in-residence at the Ryedale Music Festival, North Yorkshire in July, more commissions, a resumption of their collaboration with the German saxophonist Uwe Steinmetz and his jazz group, and abundant recognition of the anniversaries of Schumann and Barber. The year will be rounded off with more recording sessions for Linn, in which they will team up with Carolyn Sparey in the Bruckner string quintet – this following critically acclaimed CDs of the Brahms clarinet quintet (Lesley Schatzberger) and Wenlock Edge (James Gilchrist/Anna Tilbrook) – the latter nominated for the 2008 Gramophone Awards. The quartet will also be recording the complete quartets of eminent geologist, John Ramsay. To mark their anniversary they have invited a number of composer friends to contribute to a series of new fantasias along the lines of those by Henry Purcell. So, armed with both an enterprising new manager (www.rayfieldartists.com) and record company (www.linnrecords.com), the Fitzwilliam can look look towards the future with hopeful anticipation, as well as recalling its rich history with a degree of pride.