String Quartet No. 9

The String Quartet No. 9 by Robert Simpson was written in response to a commission by the Delme Quartet in 1982 to mark their 20th anniversary, one which coincided with the 250th anniversary of the birth of Joseph Haydn. Simpson was among five British composers to write works to mark this dual occasion, producing a very large set of variations on a Haydn theme, a work of some fifty-seven minutes in duration. Its first performance was given in the Wigmore Hall in London on 6 October 1982.