Biography
Renowned for its distinguished interpretations of the Beethoven quartets as well as compositions by English figures including Elgar, Vaughan Williams, Gerald Finzi, Michael Tippett, and John Tavener, the Medici Quartet earned further notice through BBC broadcasts and collaborations with multiple European medical institutes exploring music's therapeutic effects. Across its history the ensemble frequently joined forces with Royal Shakespeare Company participants in a range of stage productions.
Paul Robertson established the group in 1971 at the age of seventeen, serving thereafter as its first violinist; the remaining founding members were second violinist David Matthews, violist Paul Silverthorne, and cellist Anthony Lewis. After its Wigmore Hall debut in London during 1974, the quartet began collaborating with pianist Clifford Curzon, who soon assumed a mentoring role. Curzon guided the players through much of the piano quintet literature and originated the concert format that incorporated Royal Shakespeare Company actors; between the mid-1970s and mid-1980s the Medici Quartet appeared with numerous company performers and director John Caird in programs that combined readings with music chosen to illuminate the composer's life and work. Ivo-Jan van der Werff joined as violist in 1982. From 1988 to 1990 the ensemble recorded the complete Beethoven quartets and Grosse Fugue for Nimbus, receiving strong critical praise. Personnel shifts continued when Colin Callow succeeded Matthews on second violin in 1991, later yielding the chair to Stephen Morris.
A landmark year arrived in 1996 with the BBC transmission of the three-part series Music & the Mind, written and narrated by Robertson, alongside the quartet's appointment as artist-in-residence at the University of Surrey. Subsequent appearances focused on music's therapeutic value, prompting formal ties with leading European medical centers such as the Amsterdam Medical Centre and the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. In 2003 the Medici Quartet presented a widely admired six-concert Beethoven cycle at Blackheath Halls in London, repeating the sequence the next year at the Petworth Festival in West Sussex.
Robertson's abrupt health difficulties prompted the ensemble's 2007 dissolution, yet it reassembled for a "farewell" tour in 2008 and reconvened periodically thereafter, notably for the premieres of John Tavener's Toward Silence in 2009 and Scatter Roses Over My Tears in 2013. Its final concert took place in 2016, the year Robertson died.
The Medici Quartet documented its repertory on Nimbus, EMI, Signum, and additional labels; in 2019 Nimbus issued two reissues featuring Felix Mendelssohn: String Octet; César Franck: Piano Quintet and Dmitri Shostakovich: Octet Pieces; Quartet No. 8; Piano Quintet.
Paul Robertson established the group in 1971 at the age of seventeen, serving thereafter as its first violinist; the remaining founding members were second violinist David Matthews, violist Paul Silverthorne, and cellist Anthony Lewis. After its Wigmore Hall debut in London during 1974, the quartet began collaborating with pianist Clifford Curzon, who soon assumed a mentoring role. Curzon guided the players through much of the piano quintet literature and originated the concert format that incorporated Royal Shakespeare Company actors; between the mid-1970s and mid-1980s the Medici Quartet appeared with numerous company performers and director John Caird in programs that combined readings with music chosen to illuminate the composer's life and work. Ivo-Jan van der Werff joined as violist in 1982. From 1988 to 1990 the ensemble recorded the complete Beethoven quartets and Grosse Fugue for Nimbus, receiving strong critical praise. Personnel shifts continued when Colin Callow succeeded Matthews on second violin in 1991, later yielding the chair to Stephen Morris.
A landmark year arrived in 1996 with the BBC transmission of the three-part series Music & the Mind, written and narrated by Robertson, alongside the quartet's appointment as artist-in-residence at the University of Surrey. Subsequent appearances focused on music's therapeutic value, prompting formal ties with leading European medical centers such as the Amsterdam Medical Centre and the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. In 2003 the Medici Quartet presented a widely admired six-concert Beethoven cycle at Blackheath Halls in London, repeating the sequence the next year at the Petworth Festival in West Sussex.
Robertson's abrupt health difficulties prompted the ensemble's 2007 dissolution, yet it reassembled for a "farewell" tour in 2008 and reconvened periodically thereafter, notably for the premieres of John Tavener's Toward Silence in 2009 and Scatter Roses Over My Tears in 2013. Its final concert took place in 2016, the year Robertson died.
The Medici Quartet documented its repertory on Nimbus, EMI, Signum, and additional labels; in 2019 Nimbus issued two reissues featuring Felix Mendelssohn: String Octet; César Franck: Piano Quintet and Dmitri Shostakovich: Octet Pieces; Quartet No. 8; Piano Quintet.
Albums
