Filmed on 17 July at the Royal Academy of Music, London, this discussion features Maria Matalaev presenting her book Valentin Berlinsky - A Quartet For Life.

Berlinsky (1925-2008), was a founding member of the Borodin Quartet and its cellist and mainstay for more than six decades. A proud Russian but also a man of compromise, his was a life lived for and through the Borodin Quartet. The book tells his story in his own words, compiled and edited by his granddaughter, Maria Matalaev, from his diaries, correspondence and interviews, and his accounts of his close friendships with the likes of Shostakovich, Richter, Rostropovich and Oistrakh.

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