HAYDN  String Quartet in D Major, Op. 64, No. 5, “The Lark”

In his 68 string quartets, Haydn virtually created the chamber music genre that would occupy a central place in 19th-century European music and musical life. “The Lark” and the other Op. 64 quartets date from 1790, shortly before he embarked on the first of two extended trips to London as the most celebrated composer in Europe. By the time Haydn composed his Op. 77 quartets nine years later, he was ready to pass the baton to his pupil Beethoven.

SMETANA  String Quartet No. 1 in E Minor, “From My Life”

“It was my intent to portray in music the course of my life,” Smetana explained to the friend who sponsored the first performance of his E-Minor Quartet in 1878. Having lost his hearing as a result of a syphilis infection, the Czech composer had necessarily turned inward for inspiration. The E-Minor Quartet combines high spirits with emotional intensity, climaxing in a chilling depiction of the buzzing in the deaf man’s ears, which Smetana shrugged off as a “little joke.”

BARTÓK  String Quartet No. 1, Op. 7

Like Beethoven and Shostakovich, Bartók repeatedly turned to the string quartet as a vehicle for his deepest and most personal musical thoughts. The Hungarian composer’s unrequited love for violinist Stefi Geyer partly inspired the first of his six quartets, one of several works that feature her four-note musical “signature.” The Op. 7 Quartet was first performed in 1910 by the Waldbauer-Kerpely Quartet, which would later introduce Bartók’s second and fourth quartets.