Bartok cycles are commonplace now: young quartets have taken to playing all six at a sitting.

It is also passing on the fruits of its lengthy collaboration to young quartets in a training workshop.

Nissel became a teacher of young quartets at the Royal Academy of Music.

They are the ensemble-in-residence at Stanford University, and they regularly train younger quartets themselves.

Between pieces, members of the young quartet chatted with the audience; there was no artificial mystique about performing.

Also on the bill was Fluffy, a young all-woman quartet from London who are about to release a CD of their own.

For the young quartet "The Bugaloos" was also a crash course in American-style show business.

The Ying Quartet is one of many talented young quartets currently stirring interest in the chamber music world.

Now, though fully established, the St. Lawrence is still considered one of the chamber music world's younger quartets, and one of the hottest among them.

"Touring is the hardest thing for a young quartet to get into, and many of them simply give up," Mr. Dunham said.