Musical Form
String Quartet
Two violins, a viola, and a cello - chamber music's most demanding conversation.
Chamber
A string quartet is both an ensemble (two violins, one viola, one cello) and the genre of music written for that ensemble. With no conductor and no larger orchestral forces to hide behind, every voice in a string quartet is exposed, which makes the form a favorite proving ground for composers wanting to demonstrate pure compositional skill without orchestral color to lean on.
How a quartet works
Each player has a distinct role. The first violin usually carries the main melody and often leads the group. The second violin fills in harmony, doubles the melody, or answers it. The viola supplies the warm inner voice, and the cello provides the bass line - and, increasingly from Beethoven onward, melodies of its own.
Because the four instruments are so evenly matched in register and character, string quartet writing tends to foreground counterpoint (independent melodic lines working together) and close musical argument, in a way that's more exposed than in orchestral writing. Most quartets follow the four-movement plan of the symphony: a fast first movement in sonata form, a slow movement, a minuet or scherzo, and a fast finale.
Professional quartets often stay together for decades, rehearsing until they breathe as one. The best-known groups - from the historic Budapest and Amadeus Quartets to today's ensembles - are as much a part of the music's history as the composers.
How the genre developed
Joseph Haydn essentially established the genre in its familiar form, writing around 68 quartets over forty years. His Op. 33 set (1781) treated all four players as genuine partners, and one of his Op. 76 quartets gave the world the melody now used as Germany's national anthem. Mozart dedicated six quartets to Haydn, who in return told Mozart's father that his son was the greatest composer he knew.
Beethoven's sixteen quartets map his whole career. The late quartets, written in his final years when he was profoundly deaf, are among the most searching works in all of music - his Op. 131 (whose sketches are pictured above) runs seven movements without a break.
The Romantic era produced fewer quartets, but famous ones: Schubert's "Death and the Maiden," Brahms's three quartets, and Dvořák's cheerful "American" Quartet, written during a summer in Iowa in 1893. Debussy and Ravel each wrote a single, shimmering quartet.
The 20th century brought the genre back to the center. Béla Bartók's six quartets are cornerstones of modern music, and Shostakovich's fifteen became some of his most personal statements - his Eighth (1960) is dedicated "to the victims of fascism and war." Samuel Barber's famous Adagio for Strings began life as the slow movement of his string quartet. More recently, groups like the Kronos Quartet have commissioned hundreds of new works, from minimalism to rock-influenced pieces.
Famous string quartets
- Haydn - Op. 76 No. 3, "Emperor" (1797).
- Mozart - the six "Haydn" Quartets, including the "Dissonance."
- Beethoven - the late quartets, especially Op. 131 and Op. 132.
- Schubert - No. 14, "Death and the Maiden" (1824).
- Dvořák - No. 12, "American" (1893).
- Shostakovich - No. 8 (1960).
Where to start listening: Haydn's Op. 76 quartets, his last complete set, show the genre at his own mature mastery; Dvořák's "American" is the most immediately tuneful way in. Beethoven's late quartets are considered some of the most profound and challenging works in the entire chamber repertoire - save them for when the form feels familiar.