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Six quartets that are key to understanding what Joseph Haydn brought to the history of western music. This effort by the Quatuor Hanson is particularly successful because they know how to construct and express the quintessence of this subtle art. And what's more, they bring it off with a fascinating level of instrumental skill. Listening to this piece, we have to bow down once again before the genius of a composer who, along with Boccherini, invented a new genre and immediately studded it with masterpieces of staggering quality. Its title, All shall not die, is the international translation of the Latin epigraph engraved onto Haydn’s tombstone (non omnis moriar). The choice of this phrase indicates the permanence and universality of Haydn's body of work. It is also certainly a testament to the quartet’s lively admiration towards "Papa" Haydn.Judiciously picked out from among Haydn's vast corpus, these six quartets are touching both in their expressiveness and in the perfection of their writing. Not a single note out of place, a perfect balance of four voices and an inspiration at every moment. The closing Opus 77, left unfinished, was a contemporary of Beethoven's first Quartets, Opus 18 – works that do not betray the lessons their writer learned from his master.More than two hundred years after his death, Haydn has only just found recognition as one of the greats, a status denied him in life. More than a forerunner, Haydn is a founder, a genius whose influence was felt by those who came after him, foremost amongst whom Beethoven and Schubert. This splendid album puts him (back) in his rightful place. © François Hudry/Qobuz

Opus 18 needs little introduction and is often revered as demonstrating Beethoven’s total mastery of the Classical String Quartet. The Eybler Quartet completes its exploration of these iconic quartets in an album that showcases radiantly Beethoven’s fiendishly difficult tempi and his genius for finding contrast within a single pulse as well as highlighting the depths of his humour, wit and irony. This second volume features the String Quartets nos. 4-6. The Eybler Quartet came together in 2004 to explore the works of the first century -and-a-half of the string quartet and plays on instruments appropriate to the period of the music it performs. The Toronto-based ensemble’s live performances have consistently garnered praise as “glowing and committed”, “spirited” and “lively and energizing”. The Eybler Quartet harnesses a unique combination of talents and skills: razor-sharp ensemble skills, technical prowess, expertise in period instrument performance and an unquenchable passion for the repertoire. © Coro

Formed in 1994 at the Royal College of Music in London, the Belcea Quartet already has an impressive discography, including the complete Beethoven string quartets. For this new recording, the ensemble has chosen three quartets by two iconic composers of the 20th century: Leos Janáček and György Ligeti. Fifteen years after their first recording for Zig-Zag, and after some changes in personnel, they have decided to record again the two string quartets by Janáček. The First Quartet was inspired by Leon Tolstoy’s famous novella, The Kreutzer Sonata: the four-movement work follows the narrative, including its culminating murder. The Second Quartet is subtitled Intimate Letters, in homage to Kamila Stösslova, with whom the composer had an important relationship expressed through letters, one that influenced both his life and his music. Finally, the First Quartet by Ligeti, subtitled Métamorphoses nocturnes because of its particular form. The composer described the work as a sort of theme and variations, but not with a specific theme that is then subsequently varied: rather, it is a single musical thought appearing under constantly new guises – for this reason the word ‘metamophoses’ is more appropriate than ‘variations’. © Alpha Classics

In the torment and the great human disorder of the Second World War, millions of children, women and men perished in death camps, killed by the barbary of man. Amongst them, three musicians: Pavel Haas, Hans Krása and Erwin Schulhoff. They were Jewish, they were also intellectuals, modernist, communist or homosexual, and all three of them extraordinary musicians. A double and terrible injustice as, assassinated in their youth, they were also deprived of posthumous glory, history having retained their status as victims, rather than that of composers. This recording pays homage to the music of these "Three brothers of the storm", full of sensuality, colours and life. © Klarthe

Founded in 1998 at Pro Corda, Suffolk, the multiaward-winning Doric String Quartet describes recording Britten’s quartets as a significant milestone: ‘In our recording we have endeavoured to tread a line that brings out the humanity in these works but also recognises the need for distance and fragility. This is very personal and intimate music, yet also world-encompassing and timeless.’ The Quartet continues: ‘Another feature of this recording is that Hélène Clément, our violist, is playing on Benjamin Britten’s own viola. This instrument (on loan from the Britten-Pears Foundation) was made in 1843 in Milan by Francesco Guissani. It was previously owned by the composer Frank Bridge who gave it to Britten, as a departure gift when Britten and Pears set sail for the USA in 1939.’ Hélène Clément writes: ‘To be able to explore the music of Britten with the very sound that the composer had in his ears is the greatest honour and joy I could have imagined.’ © Chandos

Following on from its highly-acclaimed complete cycle of string quartets from the Viennese School, the Quatuor Diotima reaches new heights in its discography with a recording of some of the most significant works of the 20th century music: the six quartets of Béla Bartok, born out of the different artistic and political influences of the time. “These six quartets give us a genuine overview of the composer’s personal life, from his first disappointment in love to the heartbreaking farewell to his mother and his homeland. The evolution of his musical language is equally spectacular. Starting with a post-Romanticism imbued with folklore, still very present in the first two quartets, the Bartókian identity is fully asserted in the great works of his maturity that are the Third, Fourth and Fifth Quartets, and culminates in the highly individual form of the Sixth Quartet, one great song of despair and nostalgia. […] There is a before and an after Bartók in the quartet world. He renews, reinvents all the issues of the genre, the question of the relationship between the voices of the quartet governing the forms, the search for the ‘little difference’, the search for heterogeneity in so homogeneous a medium.” © Naive Classique