Haydn’s epoch-making Op. 20 string quartets of 1772 are among the works that earned Haydn the sobriquet ‘the father of the string quartet’ and are considered a milestone in the history of the form. The six ‘Razumovsky’ quartets, written less than 30 years later, were Beethoven’s first compositions in this genre, and demonstrate his total mastery of the string quartet as developed by Haydn.