Beethoven: String Quartet No. 7 in F major, Op. 59 No. 1 'Rasumovsky No. 1'

The critically acclaimed ensemble, The Endellion String Quartet, celebrate their 30th anniversary with the release of a spectacular 10 CD Box Set of new recordings of Beethoven String Quartets and String Quintets, and all quartet and quintet fragments. The release also coincides with the 800th anniversary of Cambridge University, where they have been quartet in residence since 1992, and therefore form a key part in the quartet’s celebrations as musical ambassador.

The Endellion String Quartet formed in 1979, and is renowned as one of the finest quartets in the world.

Winner of the Royal Philharmonic Society Award for Best Chamber Ensemble, the quartet have an international touring schedule and have performed at every major venue and festival across the globe. They have worked with the likes of Sir Thomas Allen, Joshua Bell, Michael Collins, Steven Isserlis, Mitsuko Uchida and Tabea Zimmerman. Their presence in London has been marked by several series both at the South Bank and Wigmore Hall, where the quartet were Artistic Directors of several ‘Quartet Plus’ series.

All the music featured in the recording is from the new scholarly performing edition by well known Beethoven scholar, Jonathan del Mar, and published by Bärenreiter. These Beethoven symphony editions are already used by orchestras worldwide.

To mark the double anniversary celebrations, the quartet will be performing six concerts at West Road concert hall in Cambridge, four concerts at the Wigmore Hall in London throughout October, January, March and June, plus master classes and educational workshops worldwide. The Endellion String Quartet will also feature in the BBC film ‘Searching for Beethoven’ (Seventh Art Poductions) due for broadcast in January 2009, where a number of excerpts of the Beethoven recordings played by the Endellion String Quartet will be featured.

CD10+CDROM

This 10-CD set is a reissue of an award-winning recording of the complete Beethoven String Quartets made by the distinguished Gewandhaus-Quartett in 2008. It includes a bonus CD-Rom which features interviews with former members and historic recordings of some of its previous work, as well as a new booklet with extensive text about the music and the quartet. In 2008 the Gewandhaus-Quartett celebrated its 200th anniversary and is the world’s oldest ensemble of its type.

The Leipzig Gewandhaus-Quartett has a remarkable position in the history of western music as the oldest string quartet in the world. Shortly after its foundation in 1808 by the former leader of the Gewandhaus Orchestra Heinrich August Matthäi the ensemble, whose chamber music concerts immediately attracted a lively response from the public, established itself as a permanent part of the Leipzig concert scene. During its history the ensemble has played with such important composers and musicians as Clara Schumann, Johannes Brahms, Edvard Grieg and Arthur Nikisch. This tradition is still kept alive today, and the Gewandhaus-Quartett works regularly with internationally renowned artists such as Yo-Yo Ma, Menahem Pressler, and Sabine Meyer.

Deutsche Grammophon’s Complete Beethoven Edition of 1997 was one of the great events in recording history – an 87-CD set that served as a monument to the world’s greatest composer.

Now DG are offering, in a limited edition, a box set of Beethoven Masterworks, covering the complete range of Beethoven’s works on 51 CDs.

The Edition: from Symphonies to Folksong Settings, and in between Overtures, Concertos, Piano Trios, String Quartets, Chamber Music for Wind Instruments, String Trios, Cello Sonatas, Violin Sonatas, Piano Sonatas, Lieder, Masses, rare Large Choral Works, and Fidelio

The Artists: almost all CDs are individual albums – presented in the original jackets – by the greatest artists. Some examples: for the Symphonies we’ve got Abbado, Gardiner, Kleiber, Bernstein and Karajan; for the Piano Concertos, we’ve got Argerich, Zimerman and Pollini; for the String Quartets we've got the Melos, Emerson and Hagen