Peter Cropper, the group's founder and first violin, decided to end the quartet's run three years ago. "When I made this decision I had no idea what I was going to do afterwards. But I think we have made the most of it—we have played our socks off in just about every concert this season."

Cropper will continue to run Music in the Round, a chamber music festival in Sheffield that he began 21 years ago, and at which the Lindsays were frequent performers.

The group was formed at the Royal Academy of Music. It has recorded all of Michael Tippett's string quartets, and premiered two of them. Over the course of its history, it has had only two musician changes: second violin Ronald Birks took over for Michael Adamson in 1972, and violist Robin Ireland replaced Roger Bigley in 1986. Cellist Bernard Gregor-Smith was with Cropper and the ensemble from the beginning.