" Mozart composed this quartet masterpiece for oboe for a “most esteemed” friend and oboist, Friedrich Ramm. Mozart always wrote his solo works to the abilities of his performers; Ramm’s playing and virtuosity must have really inspired him. Around 1786, Joseph Haydn, by now famed across Europe, was offered a very special commission from Spain: a composition to be heard at the climax of Holy Week on Good Friday. The subject was the meditation on the “Seven Last Words of Our Saviour on the Cross”."