Editing String quartet (section)

==History and development==
=== Early history ===
[[File:Tallinn String Quartet in Tel Aviv (cropped).jpg|thumb|upright=1.3|A string quartet in performance. From left to right: violin 1, violin 2, viola, cello]]
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 [[Divertimento|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 [[serenade]]s, there being no separate (fifth) contrabass part in string scoring before the 19th century.{{sfn|Wyn Jones|2003|loc=179}} However, these composers showed no interest in exploring the development of the string quartet as a medium.{{Refn|[[D'Indy]]'s [https://imslp.org/wiki/Cours_de_Composition_Musicale_(Indy,_Vincent_d%27)#IMSLP880379 ''Cours de Composition Musicale''] (1912) cites the "timides essais" of [[Sammartini]], [[Pieter van Maldere|Van Malder]] & [[François-Joseph Gossec|Gossec]]. (p. 214)}}

The origins of the string quartet can be further traced back to the [[Baroque music|Baroque]] [[trio sonata]], in which two [[solo (music)|solo]] instruments performed with a [[basso continuo|continuo]] section consisting of a [[bass instrument]] (such as the cello) and [[keyboard instrument|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.<ref>[[Arthur Eaglefield Hull]], "The earliest string quartet" ''[[The Musical Quarterly]]'' '''15''' (1929:72–76).</ref> 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 {{lang|it|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.{{sfn|Wyn Jones|2003|loc=178}}

=== Haydn's impact ===
The musicologist [[Hartmut Schick]] has suggested that [[Franz Xaver Richter]] invented the "classical" string quartet around 1757,<ref>{{cite journal|last=Schick|first=Hartmut|author-link=Hartmut Schick|date=2009|title=Hat Franz Xaver Richter das Streichquartett erfunden? Überlegungen zum 300. Geburtstag des Komponisten, samt einer Hypothese zu Boccherini|trans-title=Did Franz Xaver Richter invent the string quartet? Reflections on the 300th birthday of the composer, including a theory about Boccherini|journal=[[Archiv für Musikwissenschaft]]|volume=66|number=4|pages=306–320|doi=10.25162/afmw-2009-0016 |language=de|jstor=27764460|url=http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:19-epub-17252-0 }}</ref> 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.{{sfn|Finscher|2000|loc=398}} 

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 [[Weinzierl Castle|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 [[Opus number|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.

Haydn's early biographer [[Georg August Griesinger]] tells the story thus:

<blockquote>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 Castle|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]] [[Johann Georg Albrechtsberger|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{{Sic}},<ref>This would put the date earlier, around 1750; {{harvtxt|Finscher|2000}} as well as {{harvtxt|Webster|Feder|2001}} judge that Griesinger erred here.</ref> 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.{{sfn|Griesinger|1963|loc=13}}</blockquote>

Haydn went on to write nine other quartets around this time. These works were published as his Op. 1 and Op. 2; one quartet went unpublished, and some of the early "quartets" are actually symphonies missing their wind parts. They have five movements and take the form: fast movement, [[minuet and trio]] I, slow movement, minuet and trio II, and fast [[finale (music)|finale]]. As [[Ludwig Finscher]] notes, they draw stylistically on the Austrian [[divertimento]] tradition.{{sfn|Finscher|2000|loc=398}}

After these early efforts, Haydn did not return to the string quartet for several years, but when he did so, it was to make a significant step in the genre's development. The intervening years saw Haydn begin his employment as [[Kapellmeister]] to the [[Esterházy]] princes, for whom he was required to compose numerous symphonies and dozens of trios for violin, viola, and the bass instrument called the [[baryton]] (played by Prince [[Nikolaus Esterhazy|Nikolaus Esterházy]] himself). The opportunities for experiment which both these genres offered Haydn perhaps helped him in the pursuit of the more advanced quartet style found in the eighteen works published in the early 1770s as Opp. 9, 17, and [[String Quartets, Op. 20 (Haydn)|20]]. These are written in a form that became established as standard both for Haydn and for other composers. Clearly composed as sets, these quartets feature a four-movement layout having broadly conceived, moderately paced first movements and, in increasing measure, a democratic and conversational interplay of parts, close-knit thematic development, and skillful though often restrained use of counterpoint. The convincing realizations of the progressive aims of the Op. 20 set of 1772, in particular, makes them the first major peak in the history of the string quartet.<ref>Lindsay Kemp: Joseph Haydn: The String Quartets, Decca 200.</ref> Certainly they offered to their own time state-of-the art models to follow for the best part of a decade; the teenage [[Mozart]], in his early quartets, was among the composers moved to imitate many of their characteristics, right down to the vital [[fugue]]s with which Haydn sought to bring greater architectural weight to the finales of nos. 2, 5 and 6.

After Op. 20, it becomes harder to point to similar major jumps in the string quartet's development in Haydn's hands, though not due to any lack of invention or application on the composer's part. As [[Donald Tovey]] put it: "with Op. 20 the historical development of Haydn's quartets reaches its goal; and further progress is not progress in any historical sense, but simply the difference between one masterpiece and the next."{{sfn|Tovey|loc={{Page needed|date=January 2017}}}}<!--Is there not a contrary point of view that Op. 33 was even more innovative than Op. 20?-->

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The musicologist Roger Hickman has however dissented from this consensus view. He notes a change in string quartet writing towards the end of the 1760s, featuring characteristics which are today thought of as essential to the genre – scoring for two violins, viola and cello, solo passages, and absence of actual or potential [[basso continuo]] accompaniment. Noting that at this time other composers than Haydn were writing works conforming to these 'modern' criteria, and that Haydn's earlier quartets did not meet them, he suggests that "one casualty [of such a perspective] is the notion that Haydn "invented" the string quartet... Although he may still be considered the 'father' of the 'Classical' string quartet, he is not the creator of the sting quartet genre itself... This old and otiose myth not only misrepresents the achievements of other excellent composers, but also distorts the character and qualities of Haydn's opp. 1, 2 and 9".<ref>{{cite journal |last=Hickman|first=Roger|date=1981 |title=The Nascent Viennese String Quartet|jstor=741992|journal=[[The Musical Quarterly]]|volume=67 |issue=2 |pages=211–212 |doi=}}</ref> 

The musicologist [[Cliff Eisen]] contextualizes the Op. 20 quartets as follows: "Haydn's quartets of the late 1760s and early 1770s [opp. 9, 17, and 20] are high points in the early history of the quartet. Characterized by a wide range of textures, frequent asymmetries and theatrical gestures...these quartets established the genre's four-movement form, its larger dimensions, and ...its greater aesthetic pretensions and expressive range."<ref>{{cite book|last=Eisen|first=Cliff|author-link=Cliff Eisen|editor-first=Simon|editor-last=Keefe|editor-link=Simon P. Keefe|date=2009 |title=The Cambridge History of Eighteenth-Century Music |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/the-cambridge-history-of-eighteenth-century-music/89CD5DBB0501F1A52B516F320F8A7129 |chapter= The string quartet|location=Cambridge |publisher= Cambridge University Press|page=650|isbn=9781139056038}}</ref>

That Haydn's string quartets were already "classics" that defined the genre by 1801 can be judged by [[Ignaz Pleyel]]'s publication in Paris of a "complete" series that year, and the quartet's evolution as vehicle for public performance can be judged by Pleyel's ten-volume set of [[miniature score]]s intended for hearers rather than players – early examples of this genre of [[Music publisher (popular music)|music publishing]]. Since Haydn's day, the string quartet has been prestigious and considered one of the true tests of a composer's art. This may be partly because the palette of sound is more restricted than with [[orchestra]]l music, forcing the music to stand more on its own rather than relying on [[timbre|tonal color]]; or from the inherently [[counterpoint|contrapuntal]] tendency in music written for four equal instruments.

=== After Haydn ===
Quartet composition flourished in the [[Classical music era|Classical]] era. [[Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart|Mozart]], [[Ludwig van Beethoven|Beethoven]] and [[Franz Schubert|Schubert]] each composed a number of quartets: "Beethoven in particular is credited with developing the genre in an experimental and dynamic fashion, especially in his later series of quartets written in the 1820s up until his death. Their forms and ideas inspired and continue to inspire musicians and composers, such as [[Richard Wagner|Wagner]] and [[Béla Bartók|Bartók]]."<ref>{{cite book|last1=Morris|first1=Edmund|title=The Universal Composer|date=2005|publisher=Atlas Books|location=New York|isbn=0-06-075974-7}}{{Page needed|date=May 2017}}</ref> Schubert's last musical wish was to hear Beethoven's [[String Quartet No. 14 (Beethoven)|Quartet in C{{music|sharp}} minor, Op. 131]], which he heard on 14 November 1828, just five days before his death. Upon listening to an earlier performance of this quartet, Schubert had remarked, "After this, what is left for us to write?" Wagner, when reflecting on Op. 131's first movement, said that it "reveals the most melancholy sentiment expressed in music". Of the [[Late string quartets (Beethoven)|late quartets]], Beethoven cited his own favorite as [[String Quartet No. 14 (Beethoven)|Op. 131]], which he saw as his most perfect single work.

[[Felix Mendelssohn|Mendelssohn]]'s [[String Quartets (Mendelssohn)|six string quartets]] span the full range of his career, from 1828 to 1847; [[Robert Schumann|Schumann]]'s [[String Quartets (Schumann)|three string quartets]] were all written in 1842 and dedicated to Mendelssohn, whose quartets Schumann had been studying in preparation, along with those of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. Several Romantic-era composers wrote only one quartet, while [[Antonín Dvořák#String quartets|Dvořák]] wrote 14.

=== In the 20th century ===
[[File:Schoenberg string quartet exc. quartal chord.png|thumb|String quartet [[musical notation|score]] ([[quartal and quintal harmony|quartal harmony]] from Schoenberg's [[String Quartets (Schoenberg)#String Quartet No. 1, op. 7|String Quartet No. 1]])[[File:Schoenberg string quartet exc. quartal chord.mid]]|upright=1.3]]In the modern era, the string quartet played a key role in the development of [[Arnold Schoenberg|Schoenberg]] (who added a [[soprano]] in his [[String Quartet No. 2 (Schoenberg)|String Quartet No. 2]]), [[Béla Bartók|Bartók]], and [[Dmitri Shostakovich|Shostakovich]] especially. After the [[Second World War]], some composers, such as [[Olivier Messiaen|Messiaen]] questioned the relevance of the string quartet and avoided writing them.{{Citation needed|date=February 2023}} However, from the 1960s onwards, many composers have shown a renewed interest in the genre. 

During his tenure as [[Master of the Queen's Music]], [[Peter Maxwell Davies]] produced a set of ten entitled the [[Naxos Quartets]] (to a commission from [[Naxos Records]]) from 2001 to 2007. [[Margaret Jones Wiles]] composed over 50 string quartets. [[David Matthews (composer)|David Matthews]] has written eleven, and [[Robin Holloway]] both five quartets and six "quartettini". Over nearly five decades, [[Elliott Carter]] wrote a total of five string quartets, winning [[Pulitzer Prize for Music|Pulitzer Prizes]] for two of them, [[String Quartet No. 2 (Carter)|No. 2]] and [[String Quartet No. 3 (Carter)|No. 3]]. Three important string quartets were written by [[Helmut Lachenmann]].  The late 20th century also saw the string quartet expand in various ways: Morton Feldman's vast Second String Quartet is one of the longest ever written, and Karlheinz Stockhausen's [[Helikopter-Streichquartett]] is to be performed by the four musicians in four helicopters.
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