The Juilliard String Quartet - Fred Lerdahl, Donald Martino: String Quartets (1987)

These are both strong string quartets, compositionally, and the performances are excellent. Martino's quartet is as elegantly conceived and scored as any of his other works. In Lerdahl's quartet the germinal ideas and and their developments are clearly projected. Both of these works are now about 30 years old, but they sound new.