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.

Between 1757 and 1799, Franz Joseph Haydn completed 67 string quartets. Every one, even the lightweight early divertimentos, has something in it to enjoy. Many of the last quartets are masterpieces.

Late in life, Haydn reportedly expressed the wish that his canon of string quartets should be considered to have begun not with his very earliest works in the form, from the late 1750s, but with Op 9 ...

The Opus 20 string quartets by Haydn are breakthrough works that established the quartet style for generations. All four voices are equally important in a new, more emotional discourse that has left ...

The Angeles String Quartet makes a move toward international prominence with the release next week of a 21-CD set of the complete Haydn string quartets on a major label (Philips). It’s an event ...

Papa Haydn. Is he, in today’s pejorative meaning, pretty close to the image of a simpleton? The Doric Quartet say differently; and to hear how, sample the first-movement Allegro con spirito of No 3, ...

In its recitals at Wigmore Hall the Doric String Quartet has shown an affinity for Haydn. The set of six quartets, Op.20, written when the composer was 40, catch him in the white heat of experiment, ...

In his Op.76 string quartets Haydn shows us six faces, if not more. Each one of the half-dozen quartets ventures daringly in character. We see Haydn the courtly and the rustic, the warm-hearted and ...