The DaPonte String Quartet starts its 26th season with a special look at Bela Bartok, a composer with whom the DSQ has an intimate and unusual connection. They will be playing his Quartet No. 3, along with Mozart’s Quartet in E flat Major and Brahms’s Quartet No. 3 in B flat Major, Op. 67 in five concerts from Portland to Rockport Nov. 4-12.

In the early ‘90s in Philadelphia, the DSQ studied the Hungarian composer very closely with musicians from his inner circle, such as Zoltán Székely — Bartók’s sonata partner and friend — and other prominent Hungarian masters, said DSQ cellist Myles Jordan. The result was “what amounted to an apprenticeship in the Austro-Hungarian tradition.”

The program, dubbed “What Goes Around … ,” starts with the Mozart, followed by Bartók and ending with a quartet by Brahms.

“What Goes Around…” is the first in their three-concert winter series. It will be performed in Damariscotta, Rockport, Boothbay Harbor, Portland and Brunswick as follows:

• Nov. 4, 4 p.m.: St. Columba’s Church, 32 Emery Lane, Boothbay Harbor.

• Nov. 5, 3 p.m.: Lincoln Theater, 2 Theater St., Damariscotta.

• Nov. 9, 7:30 p.m.: Jewish Museum, 267 Congress St., Portland.

• Nov. 10, 7 p. m.: Rockport Opera House, 6 Central St., Rockport.

• Nov.12, 3 p.m.: Unitarian Church, 15 Pleasant St., Brunswick.

Tickets are $25, and are available at www.DaPonte.org, at Sherman’s Books in Damariscotta, Camden, and Boothbay Harbor; Longfellow Books in Portland; or Gulf of Maine Books in Brunswick.