Brahms had already composed over 20 string quartets (he confessed to a friend that he had burnt all of that 'stuff') before he finally presented his Opus 51 to the public. In the end only three surviv...
Spirited', 'dramatic', 'highly expressive', and 'masterly' are among the comments made upon Mendelssohn's String Quartets op. 44 nos 1-3. He wrote them in 1837/1838, at a very happy time: he had just...
Franz Schubert composed the song 'Death and the Maiden' in 1817, and in 1824 used that melody in the theme-and-variations second movement of his String Quartet in d minor D. 810. The song's popularity...
Mendelssohn's String Quartet op. 80 is one of his few 'autobiographical' works, a moving musical document of his grief over the death of his sister Fanny and his attempt to artistically process the pa...
Attention, string quartet players: the long wait is over! Henle launches its series of late Beethoven quartets with op. 131 in c sharp minor and op. 132 in a minor, using the definitive urtext from th...
When Smetana completed his Quartet in e minor in dark and dismal colours in 1876, he had already been completely deaf for two years. Which musician is not familiar with the fateful passage in the four...
Although Schumann's first attempts at composing for this supreme form of chamber music in 1838/39 were only fragments, the three String Quartets op. 41 in a minor, F major and A major were written in...
Debussy's new string quartet received a very cool reception at its première in Paris in December 1893, performed by the famous Quatuor Ysaye. The critics were upset by its unusual harmonies and orches...
> Inaccuracies in the first edition regarding the articulation and dynamics have been carefully resolved The quartet in a minor is one of the chamber music works with which Schubert wanted to 'pave th...
At the end of the 18th century, the town of Cádiz in southern Spain provided the backdrop for a Passion to mark Christ's hour of death; its focal point was the reading and interpretation of Christ's l...
