String quartet

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The Juilliard String Quartet performing in 1963.

A string quartet is a musical ensemble of four string instruments — usually two violins, a viola and cello — or a piece written to be performed by such a group. The string quartet is one of the most prominent chamber ensembles in classical music.

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[edit] Background

The string quartet is widely seen as one of the most important forms in chamber music, with most major composers, from the late 18th century onwards, writing string quartets.

A composition for four players of stringed instruments may be in any form, but traditionally string quartets usually have four movements with a large-scale structure similar to that of a symphony. The outer movements were typically fast, the inner movements in classical quartet consisting of a slow movement and a dance movement of some sort (e.g., minuet, scherzo, furiant), in either order. Despite some notable examples to the contrary, the twentieth century saw this structure being increasingly abandoned by composers, although substantial modifications to the typical structure were already achieved in Beethoven's later quartets.

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, cello or double bass; the string trio, which contains one violin, a viola, and a cello; and the piano quartet, a string quartet with one of the violins replaced by a piano.

[edit] History

It appears that the string quartet arose essentially by accident.[1] The young composer Joseph Haydn was working for Baron Carl von Joseph Edler von Fürnberg sometime around 1755-1757[2] at his country estate in Weinzierl, about fifty miles from Vienna. The Baron wanted to hear music, and the available players happened to be two violinists, a violist, and a cellist. Haydn's early biographer Georg August Griesinger tells the story thus:

The following purely chance circumstance had led him to try his luck at the composition of quartets. A Baron Fürnberg had a place in Weinzierl, several stages from Vienna, and he invited from time to time his pastor, his manager, Haydn, and Albrechtsberger (a brother of the celebrated contrapuntist Albrechtsberger) in order to have a little music. Fürnberg requested Haydn to compose something that could be performed by these four amateurs. Haydn, then eighteen years old,[3] took up this proposal, and so originated his first quartet which, immediately it appeared, received such general approval that Haydn took courage to work further in this form.[4]

Haydn went on to write nine other quartets around this time. These works, published as his Opus 1 and Opus 2.,[5] have five movements, in the form: fast movement, minuet and trio I, slow movement, minuet and trio II, and fast finale. As Finscher notes, they draw stylistically on the Austrian divertimento tradition.[6]

Haydn then ceased to write quartets for a number of years, but took up the genre again in 1769-1772 with the 18 quartets of Opus 9, Opus 17, and Opus 20. These are written in a form that became established as standard both for Haydn and for other composers, namely four movements, consisting of a fast movement, a slow movement, a minuet and trio and a fast finale (see below).

Ever since Haydn's day the string quartet has been prestigious and considered a true test of the composer's art. This may be partly because the palette of sound is more restricted than with orchestral music, forcing the music to stand more on its own rather than relying on tonal color; or from the inherently contrapuntal tendency in music written for four equal instruments.

Quartet composition flourished in the Classical era, with both Mozart and Beethoven writing famous series of quartets to set alongside Haydn's. A slight slackening in the pace of quartet composition occurred in the 19th century; here, a curious phenomenon was seen in composers who wrote only one quartet, perhaps to show that they could fully command this hallowed genre. With the onset of the Modern era of classical music, the quartet returned to full popularity among composers, and played a key role in the development of Arnold Schoenberg, Bela Bartók, and Dmitri Shostakovich especially. Most recently, the quartets of Elliot Carter, which span the length of his long and illustrious career, have been highly admired.

[edit] String quartet form

The main form for the string quartet was set out by Haydn:

  • 1st movement: Sonata Form, Allegro, in the tonic key;
  • 2nd movement: Slow, in the subdominant key;
  • 3rd movement: Minuet and Trio, in the tonic key;
  • 4th movement: Sonata-Rondo form, in the tonic key.

In the 19th century and onwards, this structure, tonal and otherwise, was increasingly abandoned.

[edit] Notable string quartets

Some of the most popular or widely acclaimed works for string quartet written between the 18th century and the 1980s, include:

[edit] String quartets (ensembles)

For the purposes of performance, groups of string players sometimes group together to make ad hoc string quartets. Other groups continue playing together for many years, sometimes changing their members but retaining their name. Well-known string quartets can be found on the list of string quartet ensembles.

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ Finscher (2000, 398)
  2. ^ The exact dates are unknown; the dates given are from Finscher (2000, 21); Webster and Feder (2001) suggest 1755-1759.
  3. ^ This would put the date earlier, around 1750; Finscher as well as Webster and Feder judge that Griesinger erred here.
  4. ^ Griesinger (1810/1963, 13)
  5. ^ One quartet went unpublished, and some of the early "quartets" are actually symphonies missing their wind parts.
  6. ^ Finscher (2000, 398)
  7. ^ Morris, Edmund. Beethoven: The Universal Composer. New York: Atlas Books / HarperCollins, 2005. ISBN 0-06-075974-7

[edit] See also

[edit] Further reading

  • David Blum (1986). The Art of Quartet Playing: The Guarneri Quartet in Conversation with David Blum, New York: Alfred A. Knopf Inc. ISBN 0-394-53985-0,
  • Arnold Steinhardt (1998).Indivisible by four, Farrar, Straus Giroux. ISBN 0-374-52700-8
  • Edith Eisler (2000). 21st-Century String Quartets, String Letter Publishing. ISBN 1-890490-15-6
  • Paul Griffiths (1983). The String Quartet: A History, New York: Thames and Hudson. ISBN 0-500-01311-X
  • David Rounds (1999), The Four & the One: In Praise of String Quartets, Fort Bragg, CA: Lost Coast Press. ISBN 1-882897-26-9.
  • Robin Stowell, ed (2003) The Cambridge Companion to the String Quartet, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-00042-4. A general guide to the history of string quartet ensembles, their repertory, and performance.
  • Charles Rosen (1971). The Classical Style: Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Faber & Faber. ISBN 0 571 10234 4 (soft covers): ISBN 0 571 09118 0 (hardback).
  • Reginald Barrett-Ayres (1974). Joseph Haydn and the String Quartet, Schirmer Books. ISBN 0 02 870400 2.
  • Hans Keller (1986). The Great HAYDN Quartets - Their Interpetation, J M Dent. ISBN 0 460 86107 7.

[edit] References

  • Finscher, Ludwig (2000) Joseph Haydn und seine Zeit. Laaber, Germany: Laaber.
  • Griesinger, Georg August (1810/1963) Biographical Notes Concerning Joseph Haydn. Leipzig: Breitkopf und Härtel. English translation by Vernon Gotwals, in Haydn: Two Contemporary Portraits. Milwaukee: University of Wisconsin Press.
  • Webster, James, and Georg Feder (2001), "Joseph Haydn", article in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (New York: Grove, 2001). Published separately as a book: The New Grove Haydn (New York: Macmillan 2002, ISBN 0-19-516904-2).

[edit] External links

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