Editing String quartet (section)

==String quartets of the classical period==
{{unreferenced section|date=January 2023}}
Quartets written during the [[classical period (music)|classical period]] usually had four movements, with a structure similar to that of a [[symphony]]:

{{Ordered list|type=upper-roman
| A fast movement in [[sonata form]] in the [[tonic (music)|tonic]] key
| A [[Slow movement (music)|slow movement]], in a related key
| A [[minuet]] and [[trio (musical form)|trio]] or (in later works) [[scherzo]] and trio, in the tonic key
| A fast movement, sometimes in [[rondo]] or movement in [[sonata rondo form]], in the tonic key
}}

The positions of the slow movement and third movement are flexible. For example, in Mozart's six [[Haydn Quartets (Mozart)|quartets dedicated to Haydn]], three have a minuet followed by a slow movement and three have the slow movement before the minuet.

Substantial modifications to the typical structure were already present by the time of Beethoven's late quartets, and despite some notable examples to the contrary, composers writing in the twentieth century increasingly abandoned this structure. Bartók's [[String Quartet No. 4 (Bartók)|fourth]] and [[String Quartet No. 5 (Bartók)|fifth]] string quartets, written in the 1930s, are five-movement works, symmetrical around a central movement.<ref>{{cite journal | url=https://doi.org/10.1556/6.2021.00019 | doi=10.1556/6.2021.00019 | title=The Fourth of the Fourth: On the Genesis and the Early Performances of the Allegretto, pizzicato Movement of Béla Bartók's String Quartet No. 4 | date=2022 | last1=Németh | first1=Zsombor | journal=Studia Musicologica | volume=62 | issue=3–4 | pages=291–307 }}</ref> Shostakovich's [[String Quartet No. 15 (Shostakovich)|final quartet]], written in the 1970s, comprises six slow movements.