Tuesday, September 03, 2019

Fitzwilliam String Quartet - Friday 6th September Music Nairn 7.30 pm Nairn Community and Arts Centre

On Friday 6th September Music Nairn are delighted to be hosting the Fitzwilliam String Quartet in their 50th Anniversary season, making them one of the longest established string quartets in the world. An especially warm welcome to Alan George on viola, the only remaining founder member of the group who got together as undergraduates at Cambridge.

Over the years the quartet have built a very fine reputation, and enjoyed a special relationship with Shostakovich and his quartets, the composer personally sending them the 13th, 14th and 15th near the end of his life. The anniversary will be marked by new recordings of Shostakovich, and several of the Schubert quartets.

Appropriately for a Scottish tour, Friday’s programme opens with the beautiful Quartet in C minor by Thomas Erskine, the 6th Earl of Kellie who was an eminent musician in mid 18th Century Scotland. His quartets were only discovered in 1989 as part of manuscripts discovered at Kilravock Castle near Nairn. The programme continues with a very appealing mix of new and old; Delius’ Late Swallows and Glazunov’s Noveletten contrasting with three of Bach’s Contrapuncti, and in conclusion Beethoven’s passionate Quartet in F minor Op 95.

The performance begins at 7.30 with tickets in advance or on the night from Nairn Community and Arts Centre.

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