History of Dundee Chamber Music
Dundee Chamber Music Club was launched at a public meeting in April 1929 and the first concert was held on 3rd October 1929. The artists, an early Budapest String Quartet, were a quartet of top-class Hungarian players: clearly the new Club started as it meant to go on. The audience of 256 exceeded all expectations.
Then, as now, string quartets with or without an extra soloist were the mainstay of our concerts, and audiences could reach 400. Many leading quartets – the London, the Stratton, the Griller Quartet, all visited Dundee. One of the three concerts given by the Griller Quartet included Leon Goossens as soloist in Mozart’s Oboe Quartet and Bax’s Oboe Quintet, which had been written for him. The Sammons-Tertis Piano Quartet visited in 1932. The leader was Albert Sammons to whom Delius dedicated his Violin Concerto, the violist was the legendary Lionel Tertis and the cellist was Cedric Sharpe. The pianist was a young fellow called Gerald Moore who was to return in 1950 as accompanist to Kathleen Ferrier.
Like many other societies the Club ceased to function during the war but came to life again in October 1945 with a series of four concerts. Obstacles were legion: audience figures were down because fuel, including petrol was rationed, so out-of-town members could no longer attend; and the concerts were performed in icy conditions (this last was alleviated by the Dundee Fuel Overseer granting the Club a certificate for one-and-a-half tons of coal for four concerts); finances were desperate: reserves were down to £1 at one point when the Club was rescued by a member donating £100 to keep going.
And keep going they did, with some splendid music throughout the 1940’s and 50’s despite the problems. Besides Kathleen Ferrier and Gerald Moore, performers included the Amadeus String Quartet (January 1950, March 1952 and November 1958, when they played an all-Beethoven programme of op. 18.2, op. 132 and op. 59.3), the horn player Dennis Brain who came in 1956, and, for the biggest audience, Julian Bream the guitarist.
These high standards continue to be maintained — after all, Dundee Chamber Music exists to promote concerts of the highest quality. Since around the turn of the millennium, ensembles and performers have included such prestigious string quartets as the St Petersburg (2005, 2007 and 2013), the Brodsky (October 2012), the Maggini (2004), the Kodály (2004), the Wihan (2004 and 2009), the Belcea (2002) and the Doric (2010, 2014 and 2017). 
Solo pianists included Paul Lewis (2011), Steven Osborne (2011 and 2018), Susan Tomes (2002) and Llŷr Williams (2005, 2007 and 2017) while among other instrumentalists we have welcomed the clarinettists 
Emma Johnson (1996 and 2001) and Michael Collins (2010 and 2014). Distinguished duos have included Benjamin Grosvenor (piano) and Hyeyoon Park (violin) in 2016 and (in 2018) Raphael Wallfisch (cello) and John York (piano).
However, even simply to mention these wonderful performers is to risk doing insufficient justice to the immense host of others who have contributed so memorably to our programmes in recent years. You can download a list of all works which have been played at our concerts, along with the musicians who performed them, since 1990.
And if you look at our 'Future Concerts' you will see that we fully intend to continue providing Dundee and its surrounding area with music and performances of the highest quality.
