Feeling forlorn one evening, Ariane seeks refuge in a hut she built in the cherry tree at the bottom of the garden. As night falls, she is rocked to sleep by the protective branches overhead. What does she dream of? Stories of quartets, that odd family of two little, a middle-sized and one big instrument, whose sixteen strings weave the fabric of the greatest composers’ musical dreams. In the midst of this inspirational and turbulent fraternity appear in succession the composers to whom it owes its masterpieces: Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Debussy, and Ravel, right up to contemporary composers who continue to dream magnificent chamber music.