String quartet
The term string quartet refers to either a type of musical composition or a group of four people who play them. Many composers from the mid-18th century onwards wrote string quartets. The associated musical ensemble consists of two violinists, a violist, and a cellist. The double bass is almost never used in the ensemble mainly because it would sound too loud and heavy.
The string quartet was developed into its present form by the Austrian composer Joseph Haydn, whose works in the 1750s established the ensemble as a group of four more-or-less equal partners. Since that time, the string quartet has been considered a prestigious form; writing for four instruments with broadly similar characteristics both constrains and tests a composer. String quartet composition flourished in the Classical era, and Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert each wrote a number of them. Many Romantic and early-twentieth-century composers composed string quartets, including Mendelssohn, Schumann, Brahms, Dvořák, Janáček, and Debussy. There was a slight lull in string quartet composition later in the 19th century, but it received a resurgence in the 20th century, with the Second Viennese School, Bartók, Shostakovich, Babbitt, and Carter producing highly regarded examples of the genre, and it remains an important and refined musical form.
The standard structure for a string quartet as established in the Classical era is four movements, with the first movement in sonata form, allegro, in the tonic key; a slow movement in a related key and a minuet and trio follow; and the fourth movement is often in rondo form or sonata rondo form, in the tonic key.
Some string quartet ensembles play together for many years and become established and promoted as an entity in a similar way to an instrumental soloist or an orchestra.
The is a string quartet augmented by a fifth string instrument. Mozart employed two violas in his string quintets, while Schubert's string quintet utilized two cellos. Boccherini wrote a few quintets with a double bass as the fifth instrument. Most of Boccherini's string quintets are for two violins, viola, and two cellos. Another composer who wrote a string quintet with two cellos is Ethel Smyth.
string quintet
The has one violin, a viola, and a cello.
string trio
The has a piano, a violin, and a cello.
piano trio
The is a string quartet with one of the violins replaced by a piano.
piano quartet
The contains two each of violins, violas, and cellos. Brahms, for example, wrote two string sextets.
string sextet
Many other chamber groups can be seen as modifications of the string quartet:
Further expansions have also produced works such as the String octet by Mendelssohn, consisting of the equivalent of two string quartets. Notably, Schoenberg included a soprano in the last two movements of his second string quartet, composed in 1908. Adding a voice has since been done by Milhaud, Ginastera, Ferneyhough, Davies, İlhan Mimaroğlu and many others. Another variation on the traditional string quartet is the electric string quartet with players performing on electric instruments.[15]
's 23 string quartets, in particular the set of six dedicated to Haydn, including K. 465 ("Dissonance")[16]
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
's 16 string quartets, in particular the five "middle" quartets Op. 59 nos 1–3, Op. 74 and Op. 95 as well as the five late quartets,[17] Opp. 127, 130, 131, 132, and 135 and the Grosse Fuge, Op. 133, the original final movement of Op. 130.
Ludwig van Beethoven
's 15 string quartets, in particular the String Quartet No. 12 in C minor ("Quartettsatz"), String Quartet No. 13 in A minor ("Rosamunde"), String Quartet No. 14 in D minor ("Death and the Maiden"), and String Quartet No. 15 in G major[18]
Franz Schubert
's 6 numbered string quartets, in particular the String Quartet No. 2 (early example of cyclic form), and the early unnumbered string quartet in E♭ major[19]
Felix Mendelssohn
's three string quartets, Op. 51 No. 1 (in C minor), Op. 51 No. 2 (in A minor) and Op. 67 (in B-flat major)[21]
Johannes Brahms
's Second String Quartet, unusually scored for violin, viola and two cellos (1894)
Anton Arensky
's String Quartets Nos. 9–14, particularly String Quartet No. 12 in F major, "American";[16] also No. 3 is an exceptionally long quartet (lasting 65 minutes)[23]
Antonín Dvořák
's two quartets, especially String Quartet No. 1 in E minor, "From my Life", considered the first piece of chamber programme music[22]
Bedřich Smetana
's six string quartets, especially long Quartet No. 3 in D minor, Op. 74, Quartet No. 4 in E-flat major, Op. 109, and the last, Quartet No. 5 in F-sharp minor, Op. 121[22]
Max Reger
's two string quartets, String Quartet No. 1, "Kreutzer Sonata" (1923), inspired by Leo Tolstoy's novel The Kreutzer Sonata, itself named after Beethoven's Kreutzer Sonata; and his second string quartet, Intimate Letters (1928)[26]
Leoš Janáček
's four string quartets – No. 1 Op. 7 (1904–05) No. 2 Op. 10 (1907–08, noteworthy for its first ever inclusion of the human voice in a string quartet), No. 3 Op. 30 (1927) and No. 4 Op. 37 (1936)[25]
Arnold Schoenberg
's set of 18 string quartets written between 1912 and 1950, particularly nos. 14 and 15 op. 291, which can be played simultaneously as a string octet[28]
Darius Milhaud
's string quartet (1931)
Ruth Crawford-Seeger
's 16 string quartets (1919-1967),[28] some of them in quarter-tone tuning, the last in fifth-tone tuning
Alois Hába
's 15 string quartets, in particular the String Quartet No. 8 in C minor, Op. 110 (1960), and No. 15 Op. 144 (1974) in six Adagio movements[28]
Dmitri Shostakovich
's 17 string quartets, in particular the Fifth ("Popular"), Sixth ("Brazilian"), and Seventeenth String Quartets[28]
Heitor Villa-Lobos
's Helikopter-Streichquartett (1992–93), to be played by the four musicians in four helicopters[29][30]
Karlheinz Stockhausen
's eight string quartets (1967-2008).
Salvatore Sciarrino
's three string quartets (Gran Torso, 1972; Reigen seliger Geister, 1989; Grido, 2001)
Helmut Lachenmann
's Second String Quartet (1983), which typically takes about five hours in performance.
Morton Feldman
's 43-hour digital String Quartet(s) (2000-2022), a vast four-channel multi-disciplinary work permanently played in the Cobar Sound Chapel.
Georges Lentz
Notable works for string quartet include:
Baldassarre, Antonio : "String Quartet: §4", in: The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, edited by and John Tyrrell (London: Macmillan Publishers, 2001).
Stanley Sadie
Beaumont, Antony. 2001. "Zemlinsky [Zemlinszky], Alexander (von). The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell. London: Macmillan Publishers.
Eisen, Cliff: "String Quartet: §§1–3", in: The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, edited by and John Tyrrell (London: Macmillan Publishers, 2001).
Stanley Sadie
: Joseph Haydn und seine Zeit (Laaber, Germany: Laaber, 2000).
Finscher, Ludwig
: Biographical Notes Concerning Joseph Haydn (Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, [1810] 1963). English translation by Vernon Gotwals, in Haydn: Two Contemporary Portraits (Milwaukee: University of Wisconsin Press).
Griesinger, Georg August
Griffiths, Paul: "String Quartet: §§5–9", in: The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, edited by and John Tyrrell (London: Macmillan Publishers, 2001).
Stanley Sadie
: Essays in Musical Analysis.
Tovey, Donald
& Feder, Georg: "Joseph Haydn", article in: The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (London & New York: Macmillan, 2001). Published separately as a book: The New Grove Haydn (New York: Macmillan 2002, ISBN 0-19-516904-2).
Webster, James
: "The Origins of the Quartet", in Robin Stowell (ed.): The Cambridge Companion to the String Quartet (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003); ISBN 0-521-00042-4.
Wyn Jones, David
Barrett-Ayres, Reginald: Joseph Haydn and the String Quartet (New York: Schirmer Books, 1974); 0-02-870400-2.
ISBN
Blum, David: The Art of Quartet Playing: The Guarneri Quartet in Conversation with David Blum (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1986); 0-394-53985-0.
ISBN
: The Great Haydn Quartets. Their Interpretation (London: J. M. Dent, 1986); ISBN 0-460-86107-7.
Keller, Hans
Rounds, David: The Four & the One: In Praise of String Quartets (Fort Bragg, California: Lost Coast Press, 1999); 1-882897-26-9.
ISBN
: The Classical Style: Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven (London: Faber and Faber, 1971); ISBN 0-571-10234-4 (soft covers), ISBN 0-571-09118-0 (hardback).
Rosen, Charles
Vernon, David (5 September 2023). Beethoven: The String Quartets. Edinburgh: Candle Row Press, 2023. 978-1739659929.
ISBN
Vuibert, Francis: Répertoire universel du quatuor à cordes (2009) ; ISBN 978-2-9531544-0-5.
ProQuartet-CEMC
Winter, Robert (ed.): The Beethoven Quartet Companion (University of California Press, 1996).
A brief history of the development of the String Quartet up to Beethoven
Beethoven's string quartets
works for string quartet by American composers
Art of the States: string quartet
E.G. Onslow, Viotti, Rheinberger, Gretchaninov, A.Taneyev, Kiel, Busoni & many more.
String Quartet Sound-bites from lesser known composers
String quartet recordings on copyright free LPs at the European Archive (for non-American users only).