Peter Tchaikovsky is in a class all by himself when it comes to expressing great human emotions in music that grips the heart. Even years before the incomparable Pathétique he wrote a string quartet anticipating the symphonic depth of departure, mourning, and death with an intensity going to pith and marrow. The Utrecht String Quartet has recorded this rarely performed masterpiece on the second volume of its complete edition of Tchaikovsky's quartet literature, along with a unique work: the highly imaginative Children's Album, genuinely in the original Russian quartet version!