The missing link between Tchaikovsky and Stravinsky"" - This is how a contemporary critic once termed the late romantic composer Paul Juon, who was born to Swiss parents in Moscow, graduated from the conservatory with flying colors, and then went to Berlin in 1894 to study with Clara Schumann's half brother Woldemar Bargiel. In 1907 the very discriminating Joseph Joachim appointed him to a full professorship at the Berlin college of Music. Juon penned orchestral compositions and piano and vocal music, but chamber music was his domain. Following the release of his Piano Quartets and his Quintet and Sextet, likewise with piano music, it is now time to present his String Quartets. Once again all the essential traits of Juon's compositional style are brought together with the finest craftsmanship: his predilection for irregular rhythms and rhythmic-metrical peculiarities, bold harmonies, and an unmistakable Russian folk tone in the melodic sphere. Since Juon anticipated developments for which Stravinsky, Blacher, and Messiaen later became famous, we might wellconsider including him among the important rhythmic innovators. In his chamber music Pual Juon is in a class all by himself.