The DaPonte String Quartet returns to the classics with its next program, “Vienna, Vienna,” inspired by the city whose name is synonymous with the greatest in classical music.

It features string quartets by Mozart, Mendelssohn and Beethoven. Performances are May 15 through 18 in Thomaston, Damariscotta, Portland and Topsham.

Mozart’s “Spring Quartet” is an appropriate way to welcome the onset of warm weather in Maine. Composed in Vienna, the quartet is the first of the so-called Haydn Quartets that Mozart wrote in honor of Joseph Haydn, widely considered the father of the string quartet form. Haydn was deeply impressed by the young composer’s quartets.

Felix Mendelssohn was a German whose early works were greatly influenced by another German composer closely associated with Vienna, Ludwig van Beethoven. Mendelssohn’s String Quartet in A Minor Op. 13 was written when he was only 18, but already an experienced composer of chamber music. While remaining a richly romantic work, it clearly reflects his fascination with Beethoven’s late quartets.

Beethoven wrote the String Quartet No. 10 in E-flat Major during his middle period, while living in Vienna. Nicknamed “The Harp,” it is a lavish and sensuous work that approaches perfection as a string quartet. The nickname derives from an elegant and impressionistic pizzicato section that creates a sound like the plucking of a harp.

Performances of “Vienna, Vienna” are at 7:30 p.m. May 15 in Thomaston at St. John’s Church, 200 Main Street; May 16 at 7:30 p.m. at the Lincoln Theater in Damariscotta at 2 Theater Street; May 17 in Portland at the Public Library, 5 Monument Square; and at 3 p.m. on May 18 in Topsham at the Mid-Coast Presbyterian Church, 84 Main Street.

Tickets are $20 and are available at www.daponte.org and 207-529-4555.

The DaPonte, Maine’s premier string quartet, moved to Maine in 1992 on a rural arts grant from Chamber Music America and the National Endowment for the Arts. They perform over 40 concerts a year from Presque Isle to Ogunquit.