"Make no mistake: the Brentanos are a magnificent string quartet," writes a reviewer for The Times of London. "Their music making is private, delicate, and fresh," observes a New York Times critic, "but by its very intimacy and importance it seizes attention." Violinists Mark Steinberg and Serena Canin and violist Misha Amory founded the quartet in 1992. Cellist Nina Lee joined six years later.

Artist website: Brentano String Quartet

Unlucky in love?

You probably have nothing on Ludwig van Beethoven, who spent most of his life attracted to women he couldn’t court or marry for various reasons.

Many of the composer’s well-known works, including the Moonlight Sonata, were supposedly inspired by unrequited loves. As if being lovesick wasn’t enough, Beethoven’s health began to deteriorate in the early nineteenth century. While convalescing at a spa in 1812, he wrote a letter — never sent — to his “immortal beloved.” Some scholars believe it was intended for Antoine Brentano, a woman Beethoven had met in Vienna. Brentano, along with her husband and children, lived in Vienna for a few years after her father became ill. Beethoven often played the piano for her. But when she and her family left Vienna, the composer never saw her again.