The New English String Quartet:
Winifred Small (violin)
Eveline Thompson (violin) " Winifred Stiles (viola)
Florence Hooton (violoncello)
Russian chamber music is a younger growth than Russian opera or Russian orchestral music. Glinka's essays in this genre have failed to keep a place in the repertoire and it may be said that serious Russian chamber music begins with Tchaikovsky's first two quartets (1871 and 1874) and Borodin's magnificent Quartet in A (1875).
Borodin's Second Quartet in D was written four or five years after its predecessor and published only after the composer's death in 1887. It is a delightful thing, as full of limpid melody—' linked sweetness long drawn out '-as anything of Schubert's. The third movement, a langorous nocturne, is often played as a separate piece. The finale is definitely stamped as Borodin's by the opening theme on the lower strings ; it is marked by the same peculiar little melodic twist as the opening theme of his B minor Symphony.