Haydn: String Quartets, Op. 9, nos. 2, 5 & 6

These were the first string quartets that Haydn composed as a (soon to be customary) set of six, and the first to follow up on his invention of the genre several years previously. They are very different from their predecessors. While the 10 early quartets were light, breezy serenades in five movements (with two minuets), these works already have the standard four-movement form--only it's not really fair to call it standard when it seems to have been invented by Haydn in the first place--with the minuets second and the slow movements third. The Kodaly Quartet performs them with the necessary charm and conviction as part of their survey of all 68-1/2 Haydn quartets. A good buy. --David Hurwitz