Shostakovich has been central to the Jerusalem Quartet’s repertoire for almost thirty years, reflected in multiple performances and critically acclaimed recordings of the Soviet composer’s fifteen string quartets. The quartet launches their keenly awaited Shostakovich cycle at Wigmore Hall with a survey of six works marked by the repercussions of political repression, war and personal tragedy.

‘In mood it is joyful, merry, lyrical,’ Shostakovich wrote of his First Quartet. ‘I would call it “spring-like”,’ he concluded. It makes a strong contrast with the Third Quartet, in which the composer honours the victims of war and Stalin’s Great Terror.