Priority Booking for this concert will open to Friends of Wigmore Hall from Wednesday 8 January at 10.00am. For a full breakdown of booking dates, please visit our Priority Booking page.

General sale for this concert will open at 10.00am on Tuesday 21 January.

Britten’s Second String Quartet was first performed at Wigmore Hall in 1945 to mark the 250th anniversary of Henry Purcell’s death. The Doric String Quartet recalls the work’s historic première, at which Britten’s composition shared the bill with Fantasias by Purcell. ‘Henry Purcell was the last important international figure of English music,’ observed Britten at the time, to which many added that he was the next.