Mozart was still in nappies at the time when Haydn more or less single-handedly invented the string quartet. Nearly half a century later, as he struggled - and failed - to complete his last quartet, Beethoven was already at work on his Eroica Symphony. In the interim, Haydn wrote considerably more quartet masterpieces than Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert put together, raising the medium to a level of sophistication, subtlety and originality that provided a yardstick for all later composers. Mind you, it took him some time to get there: it isn't until the eighth CD of this set that we reach the first of the unequivocally great works, the six quartets which make up Op. 20.

Mozart was still in nappies at the time when Haydn more or less single-handedly invented the string quartet. Nearly half a century later, as he struggled - and failed - to complete his last quartet, Beethoven was already at work on his Eroica Symphony. In the interim, Haydn wrote considerably more quartet masterpieces than Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert put together, raising the medium to a level of sophistication, subtlety and originality that provided a yardstick for all later composers. Mind you, it took him some time to get there: it isn't until the eighth CD of this set that we reach the first of the unequivocally great works, the six quartets which make up Op. 20.

Mozart was still in nappies at the time when Haydn more or less single-handedly invented the string quartet. Nearly half a century later, as he struggled - and failed - to complete his last quartet, Beethoven was already at work on his Eroica Symphony. In the interim, Haydn wrote considerably more quartet masterpieces than Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert put together, raising the medium to a level of sophistication, subtlety and originality that provided a yardstick for all later composers. Mind you, it took him some time to get there: it isn't until the eighth CD of this set that we reach the first of the unequivocally great works, the six quartets which make up Op. 20.

Mozart was still in nappies at the time when Haydn more or less single-handedly invented the string quartet. Nearly half a century later, as he struggled - and failed - to complete his last quartet, Beethoven was already at work on his Eroica Symphony. In the interim, Haydn wrote considerably more quartet masterpieces than Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert put together, raising the medium to a level of sophistication, subtlety and originality that provided a yardstick for all later composers. Mind you, it took him some time to get there: it isn't until the eighth CD of this set that we reach the first of the unequivocally great works, the six quartets which make up Op. 20.