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String quartet
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String quartet
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 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 manner similar to an instrumental soloist or an orchestra.
The early history of the string quartet is in many ways the history of the development of the genre by the Austrian composer Joseph Haydn. There had been examples of divertimenti for two solo violins, viola and cello by the Viennese composers Georg Christoph Wagenseil and Ignaz Holzbauer; and there had long been a tradition of performing orchestral works one instrument to a part. The British musicologist David Wyn Jones cites the widespread practice of four players, one to a part, playing works written for string orchestra, such as divertimenti and serenades, there being no separate (fifth) contrabass part in string scoring before the 19th century. However, these composers showed no interest in exploring the development of the string quartet as a medium.
The origins of the string quartet can be further traced back to the Baroque trio sonata, in which two solo instruments performed with a continuo section consisting of a bass instrument (such as the cello) and keyboard. A very early example is a four-part sonata for string ensemble by the Italian composer Gregorio Allegri that might be considered an important prototype. By the early 18th century, composers were often adding a third soloist; and moreover it became common to omit the keyboard part, letting the cello support the bass line alone. Thus when Alessandro Scarlatti wrote a set of six works entitled Sonata à Quattro per due Violini, Violetta [viola], e Violoncello senza Cembalo (Sonata for four instruments: two violins, viola, and cello without harpsichord), this was a natural evolution from the existing tradition.
The musicologist Hartmut Schick has suggested that Franz Xaver Richter invented the "classical" string quartet around 1757, but the consensus amongst most authorities is that Haydn is responsible for the genre in its currently accepted form. The string quartet enjoyed no recognized status as an ensemble in the way that two violins with basso continuo – the so-called 'trio sonata' – had for more than a hundred years. Even the composition of Haydn's earliest string quartets owed more to chance than artistic imperative.
During the 1750s, when the young composer was still working mainly as a teacher and violinist in Vienna, he would occasionally be invited to spend time at the nearby castle at Weinzierl of the music-loving Austrian nobleman Karl Joseph Weber, Edler von Fürnberg. There he would play chamber music in an ad hoc ensemble consisting of Fürnberg's steward, a priest, and a local cellist, and when the Baron asked for some new music for the group to play, Haydn's first string quartets were born. It is not clear whether any of these works ended up in the two sets published in the mid-1760s and known as Haydn's Opp. 1 and 2 ('Op. 0' is a quartet included in some early editions of Op. 1, and only rediscovered in the 1930s), but it seems reasonable to assume that they were at least similar in character.
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String quartet
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 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 manner similar to an instrumental soloist or an orchestra.
The early history of the string quartet is in many ways the history of the development of the genre by the Austrian composer Joseph Haydn. There had been examples of divertimenti for two solo violins, viola and cello by the Viennese composers Georg Christoph Wagenseil and Ignaz Holzbauer; and there had long been a tradition of performing orchestral works one instrument to a part. The British musicologist David Wyn Jones cites the widespread practice of four players, one to a part, playing works written for string orchestra, such as divertimenti and serenades, there being no separate (fifth) contrabass part in string scoring before the 19th century. However, these composers showed no interest in exploring the development of the string quartet as a medium.
The origins of the string quartet can be further traced back to the Baroque trio sonata, in which two solo instruments performed with a continuo section consisting of a bass instrument (such as the cello) and keyboard. A very early example is a four-part sonata for string ensemble by the Italian composer Gregorio Allegri that might be considered an important prototype. By the early 18th century, composers were often adding a third soloist; and moreover it became common to omit the keyboard part, letting the cello support the bass line alone. Thus when Alessandro Scarlatti wrote a set of six works entitled Sonata à Quattro per due Violini, Violetta [viola], e Violoncello senza Cembalo (Sonata for four instruments: two violins, viola, and cello without harpsichord), this was a natural evolution from the existing tradition.
The musicologist Hartmut Schick has suggested that Franz Xaver Richter invented the "classical" string quartet around 1757, but the consensus amongst most authorities is that Haydn is responsible for the genre in its currently accepted form. The string quartet enjoyed no recognized status as an ensemble in the way that two violins with basso continuo – the so-called 'trio sonata' – had for more than a hundred years. Even the composition of Haydn's earliest string quartets owed more to chance than artistic imperative.
During the 1750s, when the young composer was still working mainly as a teacher and violinist in Vienna, he would occasionally be invited to spend time at the nearby castle at Weinzierl of the music-loving Austrian nobleman Karl Joseph Weber, Edler von Fürnberg. There he would play chamber music in an ad hoc ensemble consisting of Fürnberg's steward, a priest, and a local cellist, and when the Baron asked for some new music for the group to play, Haydn's first string quartets were born. It is not clear whether any of these works ended up in the two sets published in the mid-1760s and known as Haydn's Opp. 1 and 2 ('Op. 0' is a quartet included in some early editions of Op. 1, and only rediscovered in the 1930s), but it seems reasonable to assume that they were at least similar in character.
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