With his Tenth String Quartet, which he dedicated to Mieczysław Weinberg, Shostakovich engaged in a friendly competition, setting himself the task of “catching up with and overtaking” his Polish-Russian colleague, as he put it in 1964. He eventually composed 15 quartets—with a total of 17, Weinberg gained the upper hand in this “quartet duel.” In the final concert of its Shostakovich cycle, the Hagen Quartett performs the Tenth Quartet alongside Nos. 11 and 12, written over the course of the following four years.

Due to changes in the rehearsal schedule for their Shostakovich cycle that were caused by illness, the members of the Hagen Quartett decided to switch the programs of the last two concerts so that instead of the originally intended chronological order the String Quartets No. 13 to 15 are performed before Quartets No. 10 to 12.