It appears that Mozart created his String Quintet in G minor in 1787 as part of a speculative self-publishing venture to tempt amateur subscribers. Out of favour with Vienna’s public, he was forced to sell the piece to another publisher for a poor profit.

The innovative work, now regarded among the greatest of its kind, is paired here with another timeless monument of western classical music, Beethoven’s pioneering String Quartet in B flat Op. 130.