Haydn’s uplifting quartet The Lark takes its nickname from the soaring, birdsong-like quality of its playful theme. Written after one of his sojourns in England, the last movement is a rustic English hornpipe.

Brahms’ quartet in B flat opens with the call of hunting horns and is suffused throughout with a sense of sylvan beauty and spaciousness.

Austrian composer Thomas Larcher is well-known for his passionate connection with nature and the mountains where he lives. He writes that in composing his quartet Cold Farmer was ‘like stepping or falling into uncertainty, into a perilous state, an unconditional leap into spontaneity and direct emotion… like gasping for a painful but life-saving breath after having been under water too long.’

Find out more here.