MOZART  String Quartet in A Major, K. 464

One of the six “Haydn” quartets dedicated to Mozart’s beloved mentor, the A-Major Quartet dates from January 1785, just before Haydn made his often-quoted remark to Leopold Mozart that his son was “the greatest composer known to me either in person or by name.” In his 29th year, Mozart was at the height of his powers as both composer and pianist. Later that year, he would commence work on Le nozze di Figaro, the first of his great operatic collaborations with Lorenzo Da Ponte.

LIGETI  String Quartet No. 1, “Métamorphoses nocturnes”

Insatiably curious and constitutionally incapable of falling into a rut, 20th-century Hungarian composer György Ligeti continually reinvented his musical language over the course of his long life. He once said that “all cultures, indeed the whole wide world is the material of art!” Early in his career, Ligeti concentrated on distilling his musical language to its essence, as illustrated by his first quartet, which unfolds organically from a basic four-note motif.

BEETHOVEN  String Quartet in B-flat Major, Op. 130

The Quartet in B-flat Major, Op. 130, is one of three quartets commissioned late in Beethoven’s life by his Russian patron Prince Nikolai Golitsyn, an enthusiastic amateur cellist. In its first incarnation, the six-movement work culminated in a resplendent display of contrapuntal fireworks. Upon prodding from his publisher, however, Beethoven spun the Grosse Fuge off as a separate opus and replaced it with a more conventional, listener-friendly Allegro.