The gathering of these four very distinguished musicians resulted in some of the most dynamic chamber concertizing immediately at the end of the war.
1899), a pupil of Axel Gade, had been leader of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra from 1923 to 1931.
By 1931, Herbert Downes (1909-2004), a student of Paul Beard and Carl Flesch, held the viola desk in the Henry Holst Quartet.
The Philharmonia Quartet was performing at Manchester in 1945 (the year in which Holst began teaching at the Royal College of Music).
It gave the premiere of the William Walton A minor Quartet at the Prague Spring Festival in 1947, and thereafter repeated it at home (e.g. Aberdeen Chamber Society, February 1948).