String Quintet (Schubert) No. 3 in C major, K. 515 and Beethoven's String Quintet, Op. 29 in C major. According to Charles Rosen, the opening theme of Schubert's work emulates many characteristics of the Mozart quintet's opening theme, such as decorative turns, irregular phrase lengths, and rising staccato arpeggios (the latter appear only in Schubert's recapitulation). But whereas the string quintets of Mozart and Beethoven are composed for a string quartet augmented by a second viola, Schubert adopts a somewhat unconventional instrumentation, employing two cellos instead of two violas, creating richness in the lower register. Before Schubert, Luigi Boccherini had replaced the second
New World String Quartet members were: Curtis Macomber and Vahn Armstrong, violins; Robert Dan, viola; and Ross Harbaugh, cello. Members on recordings in the late 1980s and early 1990s included Curtis Macomber and Vahn Armstrong, violins; Benjamin Simon, viola; and Ross Harbaugh, cello. The quartet also recorded a Brahms piano quintet with Derek Han, piano. The quartet won the Walter W. Naumburg Foundation Chamber Music award in 1979. In 1980 the New World String Quartet became the first quartet-in-residence at Harvard University. The quartet was awarded a Grand Prix du Disque in 1991 for their recording of the string quartets of Debussy, Ravel, and