0:00:02 > 0:00:05HIGH-TEMPO CLASSICAL RECITAL
0:00:10 > 0:00:13The string quartet - two violins, a viola and a cello -
0:00:13 > 0:00:17is one of the bedrocks of classical music -
0:00:17 > 0:00:21a tradition which stretches back to Joseph Haydn in the 18th century.
0:00:21 > 0:00:24And today there are more ensembles than ever
0:00:24 > 0:00:27to expand the quartet's repertoire and soundscape.
0:00:28 > 0:00:31Tonight, we'll be celebrating some of the greatest of them
0:00:31 > 0:00:33in myriad styles and settings.
0:00:33 > 0:00:36From black and white to colour,
0:00:36 > 0:00:38from stately homes to helicopters.
0:00:38 > 0:00:41Our Classic Quartets at the BBC.
0:00:45 > 0:00:47The bond between them is tremendous.
0:00:47 > 0:00:48It must be, if four men
0:00:48 > 0:00:51are to hammer themselves into one instrument.
0:00:51 > 0:00:56Weld themselves, with all their differences, into one single voice.
0:00:56 > 0:00:58They all live close together, meet every day,
0:00:58 > 0:01:00whether there's a concert or not,
0:01:00 > 0:01:03rehearse in each other's homes in turn, travel together.
0:01:03 > 0:01:08All four spend some time teaching or playing in orchestras,
0:01:08 > 0:01:13or giving recitals, but their central occupation is this quartet.
0:01:13 > 0:01:15And what each of them individually brings to the quartet
0:01:15 > 0:01:18is a life almost wholly given up to music.
0:01:18 > 0:01:20APPLAUSE
0:03:13 > 0:03:17- RADIO:- And that's the end of the late weather forecast.
0:03:17 > 0:03:20Music at night is given by the Allegri Quartet.
0:03:20 > 0:03:23Eli Goren - violin, James Barton - violin,
0:03:23 > 0:03:27Patrick Ireland - viola and William Pleeth - cello.
0:03:27 > 0:03:30They're to play music by Ravel.
0:03:35 > 0:03:39Like the Allegris, our next classic quartet is also British.
0:03:39 > 0:03:44They met at the St Endellion Music Festival in Cornwall in 1979.
0:07:59 > 0:08:01Originally founded in Hungary,
0:08:01 > 0:08:05the Takacs Quartet moved to the United States in 1983,
0:08:05 > 0:08:09where they're resident at the University of Colorado.
0:08:09 > 0:08:12Here, they capture Dvorak's tribute to the Spirit of America.
0:10:32 > 0:10:35In the last 50 years, more composers have been working
0:10:35 > 0:10:38with string quartets to re-imagine what the form can do.
0:10:38 > 0:10:42And our next classic quartet is renowned for leading the way.
0:10:42 > 0:10:45We're trailblazing. We're walking in fresh snow.
0:10:45 > 0:10:49Nobody can tell us how this music should be done
0:10:49 > 0:10:52by looking in a book
0:10:52 > 0:10:57or researching a period of history 200 years ago.
0:10:57 > 0:11:02Perhaps the only person who can point us
0:11:02 > 0:11:04in a direction which could be called right would be the composers,
0:11:04 > 0:11:07who we, in many, many cases, work with.
0:15:27 > 0:15:29In the summer of 1964,
0:15:29 > 0:15:33the BBC broadcast a series of chamber music concerts
0:15:33 > 0:15:37and invited one of Britain's most popular quartets into the studio.
0:18:49 > 0:18:51Good evening.
0:18:51 > 0:18:54Omnibus this week begins at a concert in Stoke,
0:18:54 > 0:18:56which features the four young musicians
0:18:56 > 0:18:58who make up the Lindsay String Quartet.
0:18:58 > 0:19:01Now, they're a very remarkable group of players, this quartet,
0:19:01 > 0:19:03not only for their musical ability,
0:19:03 > 0:19:04but also because one of their aims
0:19:04 > 0:19:08is to break down the mystique which still surrounds chamber music,
0:19:08 > 0:19:10even for some people who reckon to enjoy opera, say,
0:19:10 > 0:19:12or Romantic symphonies.
0:19:12 > 0:19:15At Peter Cheeseman's Victoria Theatre in Stoke,
0:19:15 > 0:19:18the Lindsay has been doing an entire Beethoven cycle
0:19:18 > 0:19:20this season in a specially informal atmosphere.
0:19:20 > 0:19:23The Omnibus film unit spent some time with them last January
0:19:23 > 0:19:27to prepare this portrait of the Lindsay Quartet at work.
0:19:31 > 0:19:34We've found that, really, a university
0:19:34 > 0:19:39was a marvellous basis on which to build a quartet.
0:19:39 > 0:19:43It gives you a chance to, not consciously mould yourselves,
0:19:43 > 0:19:46but just purely by being together for the number of hours
0:19:46 > 0:19:49that a university position will allow you to do.
0:19:49 > 0:19:53Because you definitely need time to mould four people's
0:19:53 > 0:19:55way of thinking and way of playing.
0:20:10 > 0:20:13Beethoven was commissioned by Count Razumovsky.
0:20:13 > 0:20:16He wrote three quartets of 59.
0:20:16 > 0:20:18And I think the slow movement of 59 No.1
0:20:18 > 0:20:22is just out of this world, just fantastic.
0:20:22 > 0:20:24That's the great thing about quartets.
0:20:24 > 0:20:26I mean, you imagine most people
0:20:26 > 0:20:30doing the same thing for 20, 30, 40 years,
0:20:30 > 0:20:32playing the same music time and time again...
0:20:32 > 0:20:36Well, we've only done it for nine years now,
0:20:36 > 0:20:40but I still, every time I play, find something new every time.
0:22:44 > 0:22:47I'm not saying that this is the only type of concerts there should be.
0:22:47 > 0:22:50I think there should be every possibility.
0:22:50 > 0:22:52I mean, I like dressing up for certain occasions.
0:22:52 > 0:22:56But when you see people in tails on a platform, say,
0:22:56 > 0:22:5750 yards away from you,
0:22:57 > 0:23:00you tend to think of them as purely machines
0:23:00 > 0:23:03that are producing a sound that you want to hear.
0:23:03 > 0:23:06We're trying to break that down with these particular concerts,
0:23:06 > 0:23:09provide people with something to drink,
0:23:09 > 0:23:12and try and show that we are in fact human beings
0:23:12 > 0:23:14with the same sort of feelings as they have.
0:23:14 > 0:23:17And I think this doesn't often come across.
0:24:39 > 0:24:42Now more wonderful contrasts.
0:24:42 > 0:24:45Returning from their recent triumphant string
0:24:45 > 0:24:46of incredible dates -
0:24:46 > 0:24:48there's even more dates you can see them at left, I think -
0:24:48 > 0:24:52we welcome now into the studio Kronos Quartet.
0:29:05 > 0:29:08CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
0:29:08 > 0:29:10And now from the Later studio in Maidstone
0:29:10 > 0:29:13to St George's Church in Bristol.
0:29:18 > 0:29:21The Armenian-born violinist Levon Chilingirian
0:29:21 > 0:29:25founded his celebrated string quartet in 1971
0:29:25 > 0:29:27with the cellist Philip De Groote.
0:29:27 > 0:29:30Here they are playing the opening of Schubert's famous
0:29:30 > 0:29:33one-movement work for string quartet, the Quartettsatz.
0:32:37 > 0:32:40Levon Chilingirian loved the work of our next classic quartet,
0:32:40 > 0:32:43which, remarkably, kept the same founding members
0:32:43 > 0:32:45throughout its long history.
0:32:45 > 0:32:47They're interviewed here by Bernard Levin.
0:32:50 > 0:32:55For a third of a century these four men have been making music together,
0:32:55 > 0:32:59and, in that time, they have welded themselves into a single,
0:32:59 > 0:33:04unique musical instrument with a sound that is loved
0:33:04 > 0:33:06in every land where the great classics
0:33:06 > 0:33:09of the chamber music repertoire -
0:33:09 > 0:33:12Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert - are known.
0:33:12 > 0:33:14They are the Amadeus Quartet.
0:33:36 > 0:33:38The one thing that we all wonder about
0:33:38 > 0:33:42is how you four came together in the first place.
0:33:42 > 0:33:45Well, first of all,
0:33:45 > 0:33:51the first other member of the quartet I met was Peter,
0:33:51 > 0:33:52Peter Schidlof,
0:33:52 > 0:33:59and we met during internment near the beginning of the war.
0:33:59 > 0:34:00We met in a...
0:34:03 > 0:34:07..in a camp for internees
0:34:07 > 0:34:11of enemy nationality,
0:34:11 > 0:34:14which was either German or Austrian or both.
0:34:16 > 0:34:18And this is where we first met.
0:34:18 > 0:34:19Was the tradition then that...
0:34:19 > 0:34:22I mean, you've broken all the records, of course, but was
0:34:22 > 0:34:26the tradition then for a quartet to remain with unchanged personnel?
0:34:26 > 0:34:28Of course it was to be hoped that they would,
0:34:28 > 0:34:30but it hardly ever happened.
0:34:30 > 0:34:36I mean, people almost inevitably changed
0:34:36 > 0:34:37after a few years.
0:34:37 > 0:34:40One or the other wanted to leave, or the whole ensemble
0:34:40 > 0:34:43tended to break up or whatever.
0:34:43 > 0:34:47I think we...
0:34:47 > 0:34:49Next...
0:34:49 > 0:34:52Right at the beginning of the year, it will be 35 years
0:34:52 > 0:34:54of the Amadeus Quartet,
0:34:54 > 0:34:57unchanged, which is...
0:34:57 > 0:34:59- I believe it is a record. - It must be.
0:34:59 > 0:35:01In fact, it's never happened ever
0:35:01 > 0:35:06since the string quartet was invented about 250 years ago.
0:38:42 > 0:38:44You must go away.
0:38:49 > 0:38:51You must go away.
0:38:56 > 0:38:58And she said, "Quick, go!"
0:39:04 > 0:39:05And she said, "Quick."
0:39:07 > 0:39:08And she said, "Quick."
0:39:08 > 0:39:11And she said, "Quick, go!"
0:39:11 > 0:39:13"Quick, go!"
0:39:13 > 0:39:15And he said, "Don't breathe."
0:39:19 > 0:39:21And he said, "Don't breathe."
0:39:22 > 0:39:23And he said...
0:39:23 > 0:39:25He said, "Don't breathe."
0:39:25 > 0:39:28And he said, "Don't breathe."
0:39:31 > 0:39:33And he said, "Don't breathe."
0:39:34 > 0:39:36And he said, "Don't..."
0:39:36 > 0:39:38He said, "Don't breathe."
0:39:38 > 0:39:39Into those cattle wagons.
0:39:53 > 0:39:54Into those cattle wagons.
0:39:57 > 0:39:59For four days and four nights.
0:40:08 > 0:40:11For four days and four nights.
0:40:12 > 0:40:16And then we went through these strange-sounding names.
0:40:22 > 0:40:24Strange-sounding...
0:40:30 > 0:40:34And then we went through these strange-sounding names.
0:40:43 > 0:40:44Polish.
0:40:52 > 0:40:54Polish names.
0:40:55 > 0:40:56Lots of cattle wagons there.
0:41:04 > 0:41:06Lots of cattle wagons.
0:41:21 > 0:41:23Lots of cattle wagons there.
0:41:24 > 0:41:25They were loaded with people.
0:41:43 > 0:41:44They were loaded with people.
0:41:46 > 0:41:47They shaved us.
0:41:54 > 0:41:55They shaved us.
0:42:21 > 0:42:26The BBC series Music In Camera provided a television showcase
0:42:26 > 0:42:27for the world's greatest musicians,
0:42:27 > 0:42:31with over 70 programmes broadcast in the late 1980s.
0:42:31 > 0:42:35In 1989, the Tokyo String Quartet were invited to perform
0:42:35 > 0:42:39Schubert's famous Death And The Maiden Quartet in A minor.
0:42:42 > 0:42:44Here's the scherzo.
0:46:36 > 0:46:39APPLAUSE
0:46:39 > 0:46:42Founded in the Soviet Union in 1945,
0:46:42 > 0:46:46the Borodin Quartet has a long and prestigious history.
0:46:46 > 0:46:48Its members worked closely with Shostakovich,
0:46:48 > 0:46:52and performed at the funerals of both Prokofiev and Stalin.
0:46:52 > 0:46:54All the members of the quartet over the years have been graduates
0:46:54 > 0:46:56of the Moscow Conservatory.
0:49:25 > 0:49:29In 2014, BBC Proms Extra invited the young British ensemble
0:49:29 > 0:49:31The Heath Quartet into the studio.
0:49:31 > 0:49:35The ensemble is much admired for its performances of Michael Tippett,
0:49:35 > 0:49:38and they went on to win the Gramophone Chamber Award
0:49:38 > 0:49:39two years later.
0:52:30 > 0:52:34From the Royal College of Music to an airstrip in Germany.
0:52:34 > 0:52:36Yes, it is still the string quartet,
0:52:36 > 0:52:39but perhaps not as we know it.
0:52:40 > 0:52:44Several times I have dreamt works of music
0:52:44 > 0:52:45and I woke up and then
0:52:45 > 0:52:48made notes and have realised them.
0:52:48 > 0:52:53You would never think of having four quartet players flying in
0:52:53 > 0:52:55four helicopters through the air,
0:52:55 > 0:52:57and me being above looking through the helicopters
0:52:57 > 0:53:00and seeing these four helicopters flying around
0:53:00 > 0:53:03and playing the string quartet perfectly synchronous.
0:53:03 > 0:53:07Then I made notes, and, when I found the time, I wrote out the score.
0:53:07 > 0:53:10And then when I sent that score to the Salzburg Festival
0:53:10 > 0:53:13they thought I had gone crazy, you see?
0:53:13 > 0:53:16They didn't know how to do it.
0:53:16 > 0:53:19I hear helicopters which annoy me all the time,
0:53:19 > 0:53:23but in my dream they became musical instruments.
0:53:30 > 0:53:33Eins-s-s.
0:53:36 > 0:53:38Zwei!
0:53:38 > 0:53:40Drei-i-i!
0:53:42 > 0:53:44Sechs!
0:53:44 > 0:53:45Sieben!
0:53:45 > 0:53:47Acht!
0:53:47 > 0:53:48Neun!
0:53:48 > 0:53:50- Zehn!- Elf!
0:53:50 > 0:53:52Zwolf!
0:53:52 > 0:53:54Dreizehn!
0:53:59 > 0:54:01So I had in a mix sequencer
0:54:01 > 0:54:05very clearly separated the four sounds of
0:54:05 > 0:54:07the four helicopters and of the four instruments,
0:54:07 > 0:54:09always in pairs,
0:54:09 > 0:54:12I could project them over four groups of loudspeakers.
0:54:14 > 0:54:17Our final classic quartet also leads the way in
0:54:17 > 0:54:19exploring new avenues and audiences.
0:54:19 > 0:54:22Here they are working with Elvis Costello.
0:54:22 > 0:54:24For those of you who haven't met them before,
0:54:24 > 0:54:27please let me introduce you to the Brodsky Quartet.
0:54:27 > 0:54:29CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
0:55:05 > 0:55:09# They talk to the sister, the father and the mother
0:55:09 > 0:55:14# With a microphone in one hand and a chequebook in the other
0:55:14 > 0:55:18# And the camera noses in to the tears on her face
0:55:18 > 0:55:21# The tears on her face
0:55:21 > 0:55:23# The tears on her face
0:55:23 > 0:55:27# You can put them back together with your paper and paste
0:55:27 > 0:55:30# But you can't put them back together
0:55:30 > 0:55:33# You can't put them back together
0:55:33 > 0:55:34# What would you say?
0:55:34 > 0:55:37# What would you do?
0:55:37 > 0:55:42# Children and animals, two by two
0:55:42 > 0:55:46# Give me the needle Give me the rope
0:55:46 > 0:55:51# We're gonna melt them down for pills and soap
0:55:56 > 0:56:00# Four and twenty crowbars jammy your desire
0:56:00 > 0:56:05# Out of the frying pan into the fire
0:56:05 > 0:56:07# The king is in the counting house
0:56:07 > 0:56:10# Some folk have all the luck
0:56:10 > 0:56:14# And all we get are pictures of Lord and Lady Muck
0:56:14 > 0:56:16# They come from lovely people
0:56:16 > 0:56:19# With a hardline and hypocrisy
0:56:19 > 0:56:22# There are ashtrays of emotion
0:56:22 > 0:56:25# For the fag ends of the aristocracy
0:56:25 > 0:56:27# What would you say?
0:56:27 > 0:56:29# What would you do?
0:56:29 > 0:56:33# Children and animals, two by two
0:56:34 > 0:56:38# Give me the needle give me the rope
0:56:38 > 0:56:44# We're gonna melt them down for pills and soap
0:56:44 > 0:56:50# Give me the needle
0:56:50 > 0:56:55# Give me the rope
0:56:57 > 0:57:06# We're going melt them down
0:57:06 > 0:57:11# For pills and soap
0:57:11 > 0:57:23# For pills and soap. #
0:57:32 > 0:57:35CHEERING AND APPLAUSE Two violins, a viola and a cello.
0:57:35 > 0:57:38The format might not have changed much but, as we've seen,
0:57:38 > 0:57:39it remains endlessly flexible -
0:57:39 > 0:57:42a musical chameleon able to adapt to
0:57:42 > 0:57:45many different styles and settings,
0:57:45 > 0:57:47blending together past and present.
0:57:47 > 0:57:49Stand by, everybody.
0:57:49 > 0:57:53We go ahead with the second movement in five seconds from now.
0:57:55 > 0:57:57But tonight we leave you back at the
0:57:57 > 0:58:00BBC's Maida Vale Studios in 1960.
0:58:00 > 0:58:03Music At Night is given by the Allegri Quartet.
0:58:03 > 0:58:04Eli Goren - violin,
0:58:04 > 0:58:06James Barton - violin,
0:58:06 > 0:58:07Patrick Ireland - viola,
0:58:07 > 0:58:09and William Pleeth - cello.
0:58:09 > 0:58:12They're to play music by Ravel.