The Fitzwilliam String Quartet is one of the longest established string quartets in the world. They first sat down to play together as undergraduates during their inaugural term at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, in Autumn 1968. Soon after graduating in 1971 they were booked for their first professional appointment, as Quartet-in-Residence in Wilfrid Meller’s new Music Department at York University (succeeding the Amadeus Quartet). The Fitzwilliam was one of the first of a long line of eminent quartets to have emerged under the guidance of Sidney Griller at the Royal Academy of Music. They quickly achieved international recognition for their diverse repertoire and were winners of the first-ever Gramophone Award for Chamber Music. Undoubtedly it was their much-documented personal connection with Shostakovich which first catapulted them into the public eye (twice Grammy-nominated for Best Chamber Music Performance: Quartet no.14, 1977; and Quartets nos. 5 & 6, 1980) – the composer reportedly told Benjamin Britten that the Fitzwilliam were his “preferred partners of my quartets” – but there were many other award-winning recordings on Decca, all collected here for the first time in one edition.

- 15 CDs with spined wallets, original jackets, and original LP programme

- The recordings are accompanied by a 40pp book (En/Fr/De) with an introduction and reminiscences by founding member Alan George, and a reappraisal of the recordings by Jeremy Hayes