Written within a few years of each other, the two quartets on this disc are the sole examples in the genre by composers overwhelmingly associated with the operatic stage. Each, in its different way, pays homage to the Viennese masters who perfected the medium of the string quartet. But there any affinity between the two pieces must end. Verdi’s Quartet, written when he was nearly sixty, is a work of subtle mastery that proclaims the composer’s individual voice on every page. Strauss’s is the work of an adolescent, astonishingly assured but giving not the slightest hint of the future creator of Don Juan, Elektra and Der Rosenkavalier.