String Quartets 1–3 is a 1991 album by the Balanescu Quartet (Alexander Balanescu, Jonathan Carney, Kate Musker, and Tony Hinnigan) and the fifteenth release by Michael Nyman. It is the second album of his music (after Out of the Ruins) on which he did not perform or conduct, though he does provide liner notes. String Quartet No. 3 is built out of Out of the Ruins and became a fixture in numerous Nyman film scores in the 1990s.The album was issued by Argo Records with two different covers.