Benjamin Britten, Three Divertimenti for String Quartet
Benjamin Britten wrote the Three Divertimenti in 1933 whilst studying composition with John Ireland at the Royal College of Music. He found that his compositional style, which lent towards contemporary European ideals, did not always find favour with the establishment; and in later life said of his College years, "They don't seem very happy in retrospect. I feel I didn't learn very much". The three movements originally belonged to an unfinished suite for quartet entitled "Go play, boy, play". Initially dubbed "PT", "At the party" and "Ragging", they were designed as a series of portraits of school friends until Britten withdrew, revised and renamed them in 1936. The March is one of the earliest examples of Britten's use of this form - a feature which frequently occurs in his later works. The charming Waltz has a peaceful and relaxing character before the almost motoperpetuo energy and virtuosity of the Burlesque. The Stratton Quartet (later to become the Aeolian Quartet) gave the début performance of the Three Divertimenti at the Wigmore Hall on 25th February 1936. Britten later wrote in his diary that they were received with "sniggers and cold silence". As a consequence, he withdrew them and they were not revived until after his death 40 years later.

Franz Schubert, Quartettsatz in C Minor, D.703, (1820)
Schubert's Twelfth string quartet - the Quartettsatz (German for Quartet-Movement) remains, after "Death and the Maiden", the most popular and enduring of his fifteen quartets. As its name suggests, it is not a full blown four movement string quartet, but a single movement that was originally intended as the first movement of a multi-movement work but which, just as his famous "Unfinished" Symphony No. 8 has gained acceptance as a self-contained work. Listed as the twelfth of Schubert's fifteen string quartets, the Quartettsatz is generally acknowledged as the first of his mature quartets. The first eleven had been written as Hausmusik for a quartet made up of members of Schubert's own family: his brothers played the violins, his father the cello, and the composer the viola. Because he was writing for amateur musicians in those quartets, Schubert had kept the demands on the players relatively light-his cellist-father in particular was given a fairly easy part in those quartets. But in the Quartettsatz and the three magnificent final quartets Schubert felt no such restrictions, and they were clearly intended for professional performers - indeed, his next quartet would be dedicated to IgnazSchuppanzigh, whose Quartet premièred most of Beethoven's string quartets.

Ludwig van Beethoven, String Quartet in G major Op.18, No.2
Despite his belief in his genius and destiny, Beethoven did not rush headlong into the composition of either string quartets or symphonies. He was acutely aware of the heights to which these forms had been taken by Mozart and Haydn. As early as 1795, he had been commissioned to write two quartets, as well as a string trio and a quintet. The Trios Op. 3 and Op. 4 were the results of the commission, the quartets never emerged. The quartets that were to comprise his first were written between the years1798 to 1800. His hearing was already deteriorating, and he was making every effort to conceal his increasing deafness from even his intimate friends. In hommage to the practice of Mozart and Haydn, and departing from his usual composition of one or three works per opus number, Op.18 consists of six quartets. They are sometimes referred to as the "Lobokowitz" Quartets, after one of Beethoven's patrons, Prince Karl Lobokowitz. They were premièred at the Prince's Friday morning musicales, and published in two installments in 1801.

Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, In Die Nativitatis; Movement 5 from "Naxos" Quartet No.6
One of the foremost composers of our time, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies has made a significant contribution to musical history through his wide-ranging and prolific output. He lives in the Orkney Islands off the north coast of Scotland, where he writes most of his music. In a worklist that spans more than five decades, he has written across a broad range of styles, yet his music always communicates directly and powerfully, whether in his profoundly argued symphonic works, his music-theatre or witty light orchestral works. He is currently Master of the Queen's Music.

His "Naxos" quartets are a series of ten quartets written between 2002 and 2007 for the Maggini Quartet, who both premièred and recorded them. Number six, written in December 2004 and January 2005, took as its inspiration the late quartets of Beethoven and is in six movements rather than the usual four. Movement five was actually composed on Christmas day 2004, before movements three and four, and based on a Christmas plainsong, it becomes, in Sir Peter's words, a "simple carol".

Felix Mendelssohn, String Quartet in F minor op.80
Mendelssohn's String Quartet op.80 was written after hearing of the death of his beloved sister Fanny. The music of "classical poise and refined romantic feeling" with which he had become associated is swept aside as Mendelssohn pens one of the most impassioned and powerful statements of his output. The first movement, with its dramatic sforzandos and fast-repeated notes, alternates between passionate frenzy and a sense of lamentation. The dramatic coda with a soaring virtuosic run in the first violin leaves the audience gasping for breath. The second movement is far removed from the light and airy Scherzo of Mendelssohn's famous Octet. Intense and sardonic, there is no let-up in mood. The trio section introduces a melancholy, ghost-like waltz-like theme in the viola and cello which only seems to add to the sense of anguish.The elegiac Adagio allows a respite from the dark key of F minor, but despite the major key, the movement is a heart-breaking lament. The last movement, with its rapid dovetailing of the instruments offers little in the way of solace or acceptance and ends with a wild dance played high up in the first violin. Mendelssohn subtitled the work 'Requiem for Fanny' but it would also serve as his own since he died two months later of a stroke.