Endellion Quartet

A concert dedicated to the memory of Bryan Marson-Smith.

The Endellion Quartet is one of the UK's most long established string quartets. Three of its original founding members - Andrew Watkinson (violin), Garfield Jackson (viola) and David Waterman (cello) - continue to play in the quartet, which was founded in 1979. Ralph de Souza (violin) joined them thirty-one years ago in 1986. As Gramophone magazine states:

"35 years of playing together has brought to them as a group a uniformity of thought and instinct that allows them to play as a single entity".

Their programme includes Mozart's Quartet K.565, nicknamed "Dissonance" on account of the unusual harmonies in its slow introduction, Dvořák's 8th Quartet, written in a period in which his works were affected by an unusual melancholy and reflection, and Beethoven's beguiling Opus 135 Quartet, his last complete composition written a few months before his death.

• Mozart: Quartet in C ("Dissonance"), K.565
• Dvořák: Quartet No.8 in E, Op.80
• Beethoven: Quartet in F, Op.135

The Quartet plays regularly at the Wigmore Hall, and at the Queen Elizabeth Hall they were Artistic Directors of several 'Quartet Plus' series. The Endellion also has a prestigious Residency at Cambridge University which began in 1991. It gives a regular Spring series at The Venue Leeds and recently began a new series at Balliol College, Oxford. 

The Endellion's international schedule has included tours of North and South America and concerts in Australasia, the Far East, Middle East, South Africa and Western Europe. Recent foreign visits include Singapore and Turkey.

The Quartet has made extensive recordings of the quartet repertoire, including two separate recordings of the three Britten Quartets (in 1995 and 2013), and recently for Warner Classics the complete Beethoven quartets and viola quintets.

The Endellion was winner of the Royal Philharmonic Society Award for Best Chamber Ensemble in 1996.

For more information about the Endellion Quartet visit  endellionquartet.com