The programme opens with the fifth of the masterful “Erdödy Quartets” by 65-year-old Joseph Haydn, who was then at the height of his creative powers, and concludes with Felix Mendelssohn’s last completed composition, with which he paid tribute to his beloved sister Fanny following her sudden death in 1847. In between, there's Benjamin Britten’s String Quartet No. 2 from 1945, an official tribute to Henry Purcell on the 250th anniversary of his death.