String quartet

A string quartet is a musical ensemble of four string musical instruments or a piece written to be performed bysuch a group.

Although any combination of four string instruments may be called a "string quartet", in practice, the term almost alwaysrefers to a group consisting of two violins (the "first" and "second" violin), one viola and one cello . This combination ofinstruments is widely seen as one of the most important forms in chambermusic , with most major composers writing string quartets.

A piece of music for four players of stringed instruments may be in any form, but if it is simply a String Quartet(with or without a subtitle) it is usually in four movements, with a large-scale structure similar to that of a symphony . The outer movements are typically fast, the inner movements in classical quartetform are a slow movement and a dance movement of some sort (e.g., minuet, scherzo, furiant), in either order.

Many other chamber groups can be seen as modifications of the string quartet, such as the piano quintet , which is a string quartet with an added piano ; the string quintet , which is a string quartet with an extra viola or cello;the string trio , which is a string quartet with only one violin; and the piano quartet , a string quartet with one of the violins replaced by apiano.

History

The form first came to be used after the middle of the 18th century . Joseph Haydn 's first works for string quartet have five movements andresemble the divertimento (a title which they carried in some editions) or serenade , but the opus 9 quartets of 1769-70 are in the form which was to becomestandard both for Haydn and for other composers: four movements, a fast movement, a slow movement, a minuet and trio and a fastfinale. Because his example helped codify a form that originated in the Baroque suite ,Haydn is often referred to as "the father of the string quartet." Haydn's four movements of a string quartet, with the additionof two oboes and a bassoon, provide the simplest kind of classical symphony: Haydn is "the father of the symphony " too. Haydn occasionally played his quartets on social occasions in an impromptu quartet ensembleof which Mozart was also a member.

List of string quartet composers

Born before 1800

• Joseph Haydn (1732-1809) - wrote sixty-eight string quartets(some of which he called Divertimenti), the last incomplete, plus Die Sieben letzten Worte unseres Erlösers amKreuze (The Seven Last Words of Christ on the Cross), a sequence of eight slow movement plus a brief, rapid, finale(originally written for orchestra , but probably better known in its version forstring quartet)
• Luigi Boccherini (1743-1805) - A prolific composer in mostchamber music genres, Boccherini wrote ninety-one (!) string quartets - but see his string quintets  !
  • List of string quartets by Luigi Boccherini
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) - wrotetwenty-three string quartets, including the six so-called Haydn quartets (1782-85), generally reckoned to be hisbest
• Luigi Cherubini (1760 - 1842) - wrote six string quartets(1814-1837)
• Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) - wrote sixteenquartets widely regarded as among the finest quartets by any composer
• Johann Nepomuk Hummel (1778-1837) - wrote threestring quartets, Op.30
• Franz Schubert (1797-1828) - traditionally reckoned to have writtenfifteen string quartets. The Death and the Maiden and Rosamunde quartets are particularly well known

Born 1801-1850

• Mikhail Glinka (1804-1857) - After attempting to compose a quartetin 1824 (a work that remained incomplete), Glinka wrote his only finished string quartet in 1830. While this piece is now seldomperformed, it and its incomplete predecessor are notable as among the first attempts by a native Russian composer to work in thisgenre.
  • String Quartet in F major (1830)
• Juan Crisostomo Arriaga (1806-1826) wrote threebrilliant quartets before his abrupt death at age 19. Early 19th century Spanish composer.
• Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847) - wrote six numbered stringquartets: Op. 12 (1829), Op. 13 (1827), Op. 44 (three quartets, 1838), and Op. 80 (1847); an early unnumbered string quartet inE-flat major (1823); Four Pieces ("Andante", "Scherzo", "Capriccio", "Fugue") for string quartet, Op. 81 (1847); a set of 15fugues for string quartet, written when Mendelssohn was twelve (!); and another fugue (in E-flat major) for string quartet,written at age eighteen. Mendelssohn's early quartet music shows a remarkable mastery of (and dependence upon) the formalprocedures of Beethoven's late quartets, but with a highly original transformation of their expressive significance.
• Robert Schumann (1810-1856) - wrote three string quartets( opus number 41), not among his better known works
• Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901) - wrote a single string quartet(1873)
• César Franck (1822-1890) - wrote one string quartet (1889)
• Anton Bruckner (1824-1896) - wrote one string quartet (1862)
• Bedrich Smetana (1824-1884) - wrote two string quartets, with thefirst, From My Life, the better known
• Karl Goldmark (1830-1915) - Goldmark's only string quartet was his"breakthrough" work, his first composition to receive very positive reviews in contemporary Viennese musical journals. Longneglected, it was recorded several times in the 1990's as part of a general revival of interest in Goldmark's chamber music.
  • String Quartet in B-flat major, Op. 8 (1860)
• Alexander Borodin (1833-1887) - wrote two string quartets(1879 and 1881)
• Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) - wrote three string quartets, thefirst two in 1879 and the final one in 1881
• Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921) - wrote two stringquartets (1889 and 1918)
• Pyotr Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) - wrote three string quartets(in 1871, 1873 and 1876), of which the first is the best-known
• Antonin Dvorak (1841-1904) - wrote fourteen string quartets, withnumber twelve, the American, the best known
• Edvard Grieg (1843-1907) - wrote two string quartets, the second beingunfinished
• Gabriel Faure (1845-1924) - wrote one string quartet (1924)

Born 1851-1900

• Vincent D'Indy (1851-1931) - wrote three string quartets
• Leoš Janáček (1854-1928) - wrote two string quartets, knownas The Kreutzer Sonata and Intimate Letters
• Ernest Chausson (1855-1899) - wrote one string quartet in threemovements; the third movement was completed by Vincent D'Indy afterChausson's death in 1899
• Edward Elgar (1857-1934) - wrote one string quartet (1918)
• Hugo Wolf (1860-1903) - wrote one string quartet (1884) and a more famousItalian Serenade for string quartet (1892)
• Claude Debussy (1862-1918) - wrote just one string quartet in1893
• Frederick Delius (1862-1934) - wrote three string quartets(1888, 1893 and 1916)
• Richard Strauss (1864-1949) - wrote one string quartet
• Alexander Glazunov (1865-1936) - wrote seven stringquartets, and numerous other compositions for string quartet (the Five Pieces of 1879-1881, the Five Novelettes Op.15, the Finaleof the B-la-F Quartet and thefirst movement "Carol-singers" of the Name-day Quartet , the Suite Op.35, the Two Pieces of 1902, and the "Elegy for Belayev" Op.105). The ThirdQuartet (1888) is often nicknamed the "Slav Quartet", while the Seventh Quartet (1930) is subtitled "Hommage to the Past".
• Carl Nielsen (1865-1931) - wrote four string quartets
• Jean Sibelius (1865-1957) - wrote three youthful quartets (1885, 1889and 1890) and his much better known quartet "Voces Intimae" (1909)
• Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) - wrote twostring quartets (1921 and 1944)
• Max Reger (1873-1916) - wrote six string quartets
• Charles Ives (1874-1954) - wrote two string quartets (1896 and 1913),the first entitled "From the Salvation Army"
• Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951) - wrote four numbered stringquartets, the second of which includes a part for soprano . Also composed an early,unnumbered, string quartet
• Franco Alfano (1875 - 1954) - wrote three string quartets
• Fritz Kreisler (1875-1962) - wrote a string quartet in A minor(1919)
• Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) - wrote one string quartet (1903)
• Ernst von Dohnanyi (1877-1960) - wrote one string quartet(1903)
• Ernest Bloch (1880-1959) - wrote five string quartets
• Béla Bartók (1881-1945) - wrote six string quartets widely regardedas being the finest quartets of the first half of the 20th century
• Zoltán Kodály (1882-1967) - wrote two string quartets (1908 and1917)
• Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) - Three Pieces for StringQuartet (1914); Double Canon for String Quartet (1959)
• Arnold Bax (1883-1953) - wrote three string quartets
• Anton Webern (1883-1945) - his String Quartet is composed using the twelve tone technique
• Alban Berg (1885-1935)
  • String Quartet, Op. 3 (1910)
  • Lyric Suite (serial,1926) for string quartet, a workwhich influenced Bartók and many others
• Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959) - wrote seventeen stringquartets between 1915 and 1957
• Bohuslav Martinu (1890-1959) - wrote seven string quartets
• Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953) - wrote two string quartets (1930and 1941)
• Arthur Honegger (1892-1955) - wrote three string quartets, in Cminor (1917), D major (1936), and E major (1937)
• Darius Milhaud (1892-1974) - wrote eighteen, the fourteenth andfifteenth of which may be played as an octet
• Walter Piston (1894-1976) - wrote five string quartets (from 1933 to1962)
• Paul Hindemith (1895-1963) - a violist, wrote seven stringquartets
• Dane Rudhyar (1895-1985) - Crisis and Overcoming (1978),Advent (1976)
• Virgil Thomson (1896-1989) - wrote two string quartets (1931 and1932)
• Henry Cowell (1897-1965) - wrote four
• Ernst Krenek (1900-1991) - wrote seven

Born 1901-1950

• Ruth Crawford-Seeger (1901-1953) - StringQuartet (1931)
• William Walton (1902-1983) - wrote two string quartets (1922 and1947)
• Stefan Wolpe (1902-1972) - StringQuartet (1968-1969)
• Giacinto Scelsi (1905-1988) - wrote five (1944, 1961, 1963, 1964,1984)
• Michael Tippett (1905-1998) - wrote five numbered string quartetsplus two unnumbered youthful works
• Elisabeth Lutyens (1906-1984) - wrote 13
• Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) - wrote fifteen stringquartets, often seen as being as significant, but more "private", works than his fifteen symphonies
• Elliott Carter (1908- ) - wrote five string quartets in the secondhalf of the 20th century
• Samuel Barber (1910-1981) - wrote the String Quartet No. 1 in B major, Op. 11 (1936), from which the Adagio forStrings was reorchestrated ; the String Quartet No.2, Op. 27(1948); Serenade for string quartet, Op.1 (1929), arranged for string orchestra in 1944; Dover Beach , forbaritone (or mezzo-soprano) & string quartet, Op. 3; and a single quartet movement (1949) for a quartet whose other movementswere never written
• John Cage (1912-1992) - wrote one string quartet (1950), Thirty Piecesfor String Quartet (1983), Music for Four for String Quartet (1987-1988), Four for String Quartet(1989)
• Conlon Nancarrow (1912-1997) - wrote three string quartets(1945, ca. 1948, 1987), second incomplete
• Benjamin Britten (1913-1976) - wrote three numbered stringquartets (1941, 1945 and 1975) plus two early unnumbered ones (1928 and 1931) and a number of other works for string quartet(such as the three Divertimenti, 1933)
• Witold Lutoslawski (1913-1994) - wrote one string quartet(1964)
• David Diamond (1915- )- wrote ten string quartets, from 1940 to1974
• George Perle (1915- ) - wrote seven, of which five withdrawn
• Milton Babbitt (1916- ) wrote five abstract, densely serialistic quartets in the mid-20th century
• Alberto Ginastera (1916-1983) - four string quartets, 1948 to1974, the last with baritone to a text from Beethoven's Heiligenstadt Testament
• Peter Racine Fricker (1920-1990) - wrote three stringquartets (1947 to 1975)
• Iannis Xenakis (1922-2001) - wrote four works for string quartet:"st/4 - 1,080262" (1955-1962) which was written with the help of an IBM7090 computer using stochastic algorithms , Tetras(1983), a work in nine sections, Tetora (1990), which means "four" in Dorian ,Ergma (1994).
• György Ligeti (1923- ) - String Quartet No. 1("Métamorphoses nocturnes") (1953-1954) and String Quartet No. 2 (1968)
• Peter Mennin (1923-1983) -wrote two string quartets (1941 and 1951)
• Mel Powell (1923-1998) - String Quartet (1982)
• Lejaren Hiller (1924-1994) - wrote seven
• Luciano Berio (1925-2003) - wrote three, plus other pieces for stringquartet
• Morton Feldman (1926-1987) - wrote two string quartets in the late1970s and early 1980s, the second being over six hours long
• Hans Werner Henze (1926- ) - wrote five
• Thea Musgrave (1928- ) -wrote one string quartet (1958)
• Ezra Sims (1928- ) - String Quartet No. 2 (1962) (really a quintet),Third Quartet (1962)
• Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928- ) - HelikopterString Quartet (from "Mittwoch" from "LICHT"), for 4 helicopters & string quartet
• George Crumb (1929- ) - StringQuartet , and Black Angels (Images I), for electric string quartet
• Sofia Gubaidulina (1931- ) - wrote four string quartets(1971, 1987, 1987, 1994), the last with tape
• Peter Sculthorpe (1929- ) - many quartets
• Mauricio Kagel (1931- ) - wrote three
• Henryk Górecki (1933- ) - String Quartet No. 1 ("AlreadyIt Is Dusk"), Op. 62, String Quartet No. 2 ("Quasi una Fantasia"), Op. 64
• Krzysztof Penderecki (1933- ) - wrote two stringquartets (1960, 1968)
• Roger Reynolds (1934- ) - Tetra, Coconino . . . AShattered Landscape
• Alfred Schnittke (1934-1998) - wrote four string quartets and aCanon in Memoriam Igor Stravinsky and Variations for string quartet
• Arvo Part (1935- ) - Psalom , Summa , and arranged Fratres for string quartet
• Terry Riley (1935- ) - String Quartet (1960), returned topre-composed notated music at the request of the Kronos Quartet, Cadenza on theNight Plain , Mythic Birds Waltz , Salome Dances for Peace
• Steve Reich (1936- ) - Different Trains , for stringquartet & tape; and one Triple Quartet (1999), which may be performed by one quartet (with tape), three, or a 34 pieceorchestra
• Philip Glass (1937- ) - wrote five string quartets
• Gloria Coates (1938- ) -had written eight string quartets up to 2002
• Alvin Curran (1938- ) - VSTO (1993)
• John Harbison (1938- ) - wrote three
• Charles Wuorinen (1938- ) - wrote three
• Louis Andriessen (1939- ) - wrote two
• Jonathan Harvey (1939-) - wrote two
• Ingram Marshall (1942- ) - Entrada (At the River) forstring quartet amplified with processing, Evensongs, Voces Resonae (1984), and Fog Tropes II
• Paul Lansky (1944- ) - String Quartet No. 1 (1967), StringQuartet No. 2 (1971-1978), Ricercare (2000)
• Peteris Vasks (1946- ) -wrote four string quartets
• Kevin Volans (1949- ) - wrotesix string quartets

Born 1951-

• Lois V. Vierk (1951- ) - Into the brightening air(1994/1999), dedicated to Mel Powell ) and River Beneath the River(1993)
• John Zorn (1953- ) - The Dead Man (1990), Cat o' Nine Tails (TexAvery Directs the Marquis de Sade) (1988), Forbidden Fruit for voice, string quartet & turntables (1987)
• Bob Ostertag (1957- ) - All the Rage (1992)
• Julia Wolfe (1958- ) - released an album of string quartets, TheString Quartets: Dip Deep, Four Marys, and Early that summer (1991)

String quartets (ensembles)

For the purposes of performance, groups of string players sometimes group together to make ad hoc string quartets. Othergroups continue playing together for many years, sometimes changing their members but retaining their name. Well known stringquartets include:

• Aeolian Quartet
• Alban Berg Quartet
• Alberni Quartet
• Allegri Quartet
• Amadeus Quartet
• Arditti Quartet
• Belcea Quartet
• Borodin Quartet
• Brandis Quartet
• Brentano Quartet
• Brodsky Quartet
• Budapest Quartet
• Busch Quartet
• ClaringChamber Players
• ClevelandQuartet
• ChilingirianQuartet
• Coull Quartet
• Delme Quartet
• Duke Quartet
• EndellionQuartet
• Emerson String Quartet
• FitzwilliamQuartet
• Gabrieli Quartet
• Griller Quartet
• Guarneri Quartet
• Hagen Quartet
• HollywoodQuartet
• HungarianQuartet
• Italian Quartet
• Kodály Quartet
• Kronos Quartet
• Lindsay Quartet
• Orlando Quartet
• Peterson Quartet
• Prague Quartet
• QuattuorMosaïques
• Smetana Quartet
• Skampa Quartet
• Takács Quartet
• Talich Quartet
• Tokyo Quartet
• Vegh Quartet
• Vermeer Quartet
• Ysaÿe Quartet
• Zagreb Quartet
• Zorian Quartet

External links

• String Quartet Performer Index
• GregSandow.com An Introduction to String Quartets