String Quartet

|upright=1.3 The term string quartet is a type of musical composition or a group of four people who play the quartets. 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 string quartet was developed into its present form by the Austrian composer Joseph Haydn, whose works from the 1750s onwards 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, as writing for four instruments with broadly similar characteristics both constrains and tests a composer. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe described string quartet music as "four rational people conversing" ( ). String quartet composition flourished in the Classical era, and Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert each wrote a number of masterpieces in the genre. 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, as well as Bartók, Shostakovich and, in the US, Elliott Carter and Milton Babbitt producing highly regarded examples of the genre.…

|upright=1.3 The term string quartet is a type of musical composition or a group of four people who play the quartets. 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 string quartet was developed into its present form by the Austrian composer Joseph Haydn, whose works from the 1750s onwards 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, as writing for four instruments with broadly similar characteristics both constrains and tests a composer. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe described string quartet music as "four rational people conversing" ( ). String quartet composition flourished in the Classical era, and Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert each wrote a number of masterpieces in the genre. 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, as well as Bartók, Shostakovich and, in the US, Elliott Carter and Milton Babbitt producing highly regarded examples of the genre. It remains an important and refined musical form to this day, but has evolved and expanded in many directions since its classical origins. 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 manner similar to an instrumental soloist or an orchestra. ==History and development== (quartal harmony from Schoenberg's String Quartet No. 1) |upright=1.3 In the modern era, the string quartet played a key role in the development of Schoenberg (who added a soprano in his String Quartet No. 2), Bartók, and Shostakovich especially. After the Second World War, some composers, such as Messiaen questioned the relevance of the string quartet and avoided writing them. However, from the 1960s onwards, many composers have shown a renewed interest in the genre. During his tenure as Master of the Queen's Music, Peter Maxwell Davies produced a set of ten entitled the Naxos Quartets (to a commission from Naxos Records) from 2001 to 2007. Margaret Jones Wiles composed over 50 string quartets. David Matthews has written eleven, and Robin Holloway both five quartets and six "quartettini". Over nearly five decades, Elliott Carter wrote a total of five string quartets, winning Pulitzer Prizes for two of them, No. 2 and No. 3. Three important string quartets were written by Helmut Lachenmann. The late 20th century also saw the string quartet expand in various ways: Morton Feldman's vast Second String Quartet is one of the longest ever written, and Karlheinz Stockhausen's Helikopter-Streichquartett is to be performed by the four musicians in four helicopters. ==String quartets of the classical period== Quartets written during the classical period usually had four movements, with a structure similar to that of a symphony: The positions of the slow movement and third movement are flexible. For example, in Mozart's six quartets dedicated to Haydn, three have a minuet followed by a slow movement and three have the slow movement before the minuet. Substantial modifications to the typical structure were already present by the time of Beethoven's late quartets, and despite some notable examples to the contrary, composers writing in the twentieth century increasingly abandoned this structure. Bartók's fourth and fifth string quartets, written in the 1930s, are five-movement works, symmetrical around a central movement. Shostakovich's final quartet, written in the 1970s, comprises six slow movements. ==Variations of string quartet== 's String Quartet No. 2 for violin, viola and two cellos, played at the Casals Forum in 2023 Many other chamber groups can be seen as modifications of the string quartet: The string quintet 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. The string trio has one violin, a viola, and a cello. The piano trio has a piano, a violin, and a cello. The piano quintet is a string quartet with an added piano. The piano quartet is a string quartet with one of the violins replaced by a piano. The clarinet quintet is a string quartet with an added clarinet, such as those by Mozart and Brahms. The string sextet contains two each of violins, violas, and cellos. Brahms, for example, wrote two string sextets. 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. ==Notable string quartets== Antonio Stradivari Anniversary concert on December 18, 2024 Notable works for string quartet include: Joseph Haydn's 68 string quartets, in particular Op. 20, Op. 33, Op. 76, Op. 64, No. 5 ("The Lark") and the string quartet version of "The Seven Last Words of Our Saviour On the Cross" (Op. 51) Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's 23 string quartets, in particular the set of six dedicated to Haydn, including K. 465 ("Dissonance") Ludwig van Beethoven's 16 string quartets, in particular the five "middle" quartets Op. 59 nos 1–3 (Rasumovsky), Op. 74 and Op. 95; as well as the five late quartets, Opp. 127, 130, 131, 132, and 135, plus the Grosse Fuge, Op. 133, the original final movement of Op. 130. Franz Schubert'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 Felix Mendelssohn'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 Robert Schumann's three string quartets, Op. 41, in A minor, F major and A major (1842) Johannes Brahms's three string quartets, Op. 51 No. 1 (in C minor), Op. 51 No. 2 (in A minor) and Op. 67 (in B major) Giuseppe Verdi's String Quartet in E minor (1873) Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's three string quartets (1871, 1873/74, 1876) Anton Arensky's Second String Quartet in A minor, unusually scored for violin, viola and two cellos (1894) Antonín Dvořák's String Quartets Nos. 9–14, particularly String Quartet No. 12 in F major, "American"; also No. 3 is an exceptionally long quartet (lasting 65 minutes) Bedřich Smetana's two quartets, especially String Quartet No. 1 in E minor, "From my Life" (1876), considered the first piece of chamber programme music César Franck's String Quartet in D major (1889–1890) Claude Debussy's String Quartet in G minor, Op. 10 (1893) Maurice Ravel's String Quartet, in F major (1903) Max Reger's six string quartets (including an early unnumbered one), especially long Quartet No. 3 in D minor, Op. 74 (1903-04), Quartet No. 4 in E major, Op. 109 (1909), and the last, Quartet No. 5 in F minor, Op. 121 (1911) Jean Sibelius's String Quartet in D minor, Op. 56, Voces intimae (1909) Alexander Zemlinsky's Second String Quartet, Op. 15 (1913–15) Edward Elgar's String Quartet op. 83 in E minor (1918) Gabriel Fauré's String Quartet op. 121 in E minor (1924), the composer's last work Leoš Janáček'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) Béla Bartók's six string quartets (1909, 1915–17, 1926, 1927, 1934, 1939) Arnold Schoenberg'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) Alban Berg's String Quartet, Op. 3 (1910) and Lyric Suite (1925–26), later adapted for string orchestra Anton Webern's Five Movements, Op.5 (1909), Six Bagatelles, Op.9 (1913), and Quartet, Op. 28 (1937–38) Darius Milhaud's set of 18 string quartets written between 1912 and 1950, particularly nos. 14 and 15 op. 291 (1948–49), which can be played simultaneously as a string octet Heitor Villa-Lobos's 17 string quartets (1915–57), in particular the Fifth ("Popular"), Sixth ("Brazilian"), and Seventeenth String Quartets. Ruth Crawford-Seeger's string quartet (1931) Alois Hába's 16 string quartets (1919–67), some of them in quarter-tone tuning, the last in fifth-tone tuning Dmitri Shostakovich's 15 string quartets, in particular the No. 8 in C minor, Op. 110 (1960), and No. 15 Op. 144 (1974) in six Adagio movements John Cage's String Quartet in Four Parts (1950) Elliott Carter's five string quartets (1951, 1959, 1971, 1986, 1995) Iannis Xenakis's ST/4 (1962), Tetras (1983), Tetora (1990) and Ergma (1994) Karlheinz Stockhausen's Helikopter-Streichquartett (1992–93), to be played by the four musicians in four helicopters Brian Ferneyhough's six string quartets (1963, 1980, 1987, 1989–90, 2006, 2010) as well as his Sonatas for String Quartet (1967), Adagissimo (1983), Dum transisset I–IV (2007), Exordium (2008) and Silentium (2014) Salvatore Sciarrino's eight string quartets (1967–2008) Wolfgang Rihm's 13 string quartets (1970–2011) Helmut Lachenmann's three string quartets (Gran Torso, 1972; Reigen seliger Geister, 1989; Grido, 2001) Morton Feldman's String Quartet No. 2 (1983), which typically takes about five hours in performance Georges Lentz's 43-hour digital String Quartet(s) (2000–2023), a vast four-channel multi-disciplinary work permanently played in the Cobar Sound Chapel ==String quartets (ensembles)== Whereas individual string players often group together to make ad hoc string quartets, others continue to play together for many years in ensembles which may be named after the first violinist (e.g. the Takács Quartet), a composer (e.g. the Borodin Quartet) or a location (e.g. the Budapest Quartet). Established quartets may undergo changes in membership whilst retaining their original name. ==References== ===Sources=== ==Further reading== Barrett-Ayres, Reginald: Joseph Haydn and the String Quartet (New York: Schirmer Books, 1974); . Blum, David: The Art of Quartet Playing: The Guarneri Quartet in Conversation with David Blum (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1986); . Eisler, Edith: 21st-Century String Quartets (String Letter Publishing, 2000); . Keller, Hans: The Great Haydn Quartets. Their Interpretation (London: J. M. Dent, 1986); . 3 vols: Volume 1, Die Zeit der Wiener Klassik; volume 2, Romantik und Moderne; volume 3, Neue Musik und Avantgarde Rounds, David: The Four & the One: In Praise of String Quartets (Fort Bragg, California: Lost Coast Press, 1999); . Rosen, Charles: The Classical Style: Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven (London: Faber and Faber, 1971); (soft covers), (hardback). Steinhardt, Arnold: Indivisible by Four (Farrar, Straus Giroux, 1998); . Vuibert, Francis: Répertoire universel du quatuor à cordes (2009) ProQuartet-CEMC; . Winter, Robert (ed.): The Beethoven Quartet Companion (University of California Press, 1996). ==External links== A brief history of the development of the String Quartet up to Beethoven works for string quartet by American composers String Quartet Sound-bites from lesser known composers E.G. Onslow, Viotti, Rheinberger, Gretchaninov, A.Taneyev, Kiel, Busoni & many more. European archive String quartet recordings on copyright free LPs at the European Archive (for non-American users only). Shostakovich: the string quartets String quartet compositions and performers since about 1914 and the connections between them

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