WGBH has hosted many string quartets in its performance studio. Hear three of the best, playing music by Joseph Haydn. Two hundred years ago — May 31, 1809, to be exact — Joseph Haydn died at age 76.

The host of Now Hear This and Mexico City Philharmonic music director shares the pieces by Joseph Haydn, also known as “the king of strings,” that mean the most to him. A playlist is available where ...

Between 1768 to 1772 Haydn published three sets of string quartets, the Op 9, 17 and 20. He wrote no more quartets until his Op 33 in 1781, and these were more mature, creative and innovative in their ...

The Takács Quartet come to the end, as it were, of their slow-burn survey of Haydn’s late quartets, following recordings on Hyperion of Opp 71 and 74 (12/11), which joined a vivid, generous set of Op ...

The String Quartet version op. 51 Hob XX/1B is the most often performed and recorded. But it is not the original and only presumably (though not certainly) a transcription of his own – as opposed to ...

Musical nicknames are good for business. Haydn’s set of six string quartets, Op 33, has had nicknames for the whole set, none of which is very widely used. “Russian”, favoured by BIS, remembers the ...

The Chiaroscuro Quartet was founded in 2005 at London’s Royal College of Music by four young string players who shared a fascination with and commitment to playing on gut rather than wire strings and ...