Editing String quartet (section)

{{short description|Musical ensemble of four string players}}
[[File:Fitzwilliam Quartet.jpg|thumb|The [[Fitzwilliam Quartet]]|upright=1.3]]
The term '''string quartet''' refers to either a type of musical composition or a group of four people who play them. Many composers from the mid-18th century onwards wrote string quartets. The associated musical ensemble consists of two [[Violin|violinists]], a [[Viola|violist]], and a [[Cello|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 music era|Classical era]], and [[Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart|Mozart]], [[Ludwig van Beethoven|Beethoven]] and [[Franz Schubert|Schubert]] each wrote a number of them. Many [[Romantic era music|Romantic]] and [[20th-century classical music|early-twentieth-century]] composers composed string quartets, including [[Felix Mendelssohn|Mendelssohn]], [[Robert Schumann|Schumann]], [[Johannes Brahms|Brahms]], [[Antonín Dvořák|Dvořák]], [[Leoš Janáček|Janáček]], and [[Claude Debussy|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]], [[Béla Bartók|Bartók]], [[Dmitri Shostakovich|Shostakovich]], [[Milton Babbitt|Babbitt]], and [[Elliott Carter|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 [[Movement (music)|movements]], with the first movement in [[sonata form]], allegro, in the [[tonic (music)|tonic]] key; a slow movement in a [[Closely related key|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]].