The string quartet

Cliff Eisen

doi:10.1017/CHOL9780521663199.024

23 - The string quartet

from PART III - MUSIC FOR THE SALON AND CONCERT ROOM

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2011

Cliff Eisen

Edited by

Simon P. Keefe

Show author details

Simon P. Keefe: Affiliation:
University of Sheffield

Book contents

Get access

Summary

By the end of the eighteenth century, the string quartet had achieved a status beyond that of most other instrumental genres, a status that made it appealing as a hook on which to hang historical reputations. And this, in turn, sometimes meant creating convenient histories – or, by the early decades of the nineteenth century, asserting the importance of ‘great men’, their originality and independence of mind, their historical leadership, in whatever field:

The following purely chance circumstance had led [Haydn] to try his luck at the composition of quartets. A Baron Fürnberg had a place in Weinzierl. . . and from time to time he invited his pastor, his manager, Haydn and Albrechtsberger (a brother of the celebrated contrapuntist, who played the violoncello) to have a little music. Fürnberg requested Haydn to compose something that could be performed by these four amateurs. Haydn, then eighteen years old, took up this proposal and so originated his first quartet which, as soon as it appeared, gained such general approval that Haydn was encouraged to work further in this form.

Type: Chapter
Information: The Cambridge History of Eighteenth-Century Music , pp. 648 - 660

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521663199.024 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

,Association française pour le patrimoine musical (ed.). Le quatuor à cordes en France de 1750 à nos jours. Paris, 1995

Bonds, Mark Evan. ‘The Sincerest Form of Flattery? Mozart’s “Haydn” Quartets and the Question of Influence’. Studi musicali, 22 (1993) –409Google Scholar

Bonds, Mark Evan ‘Replacing Haydn: Mozart’s “Pleyel” Quartets’. Music & Letters, 88 (2007) –25CrossRef Google Scholar

Brown, A. Peter. ‘The Chamber Music with Strings of Carlos d’Ordoñez: A Bibliographic and Stylistic Study’. Analecta musicologica, 46 (1974) –72Google Scholar

Brown, A. Peter ‘Haydn and Mozart’s 1773 Stay in Vienna: Weeding a Musicological Garden’. Journal of Musicology, 10 (1992) –230CrossRef Google Scholar

Burnham, Scott. ‘Beethoven, Ludwig van. §13. Music of the Early Vienna Period’, Oxford Music Online (www.oxfordmusiconline.com) (accessed 8 September 2008)Google Scholar

Drabkin, William. A Reader’s Guide to Haydn’s Early String Quartets. Westport, CT, 2000Google Scholar

Finscher, Ludwig. Studien zur Geschichte des Streichquartetts, i: Die Entstehung des klassischen Streichquartetts: von den Vorformen zur Grundlegung durch Joseph Haydn. Kassel, 1974Google Scholar

Fischer, Kurt. ‘G. B. Viotti und das Streichquartett des späten 18. Jahrhunderts’. In Bianconi, Lorenzo et al. (eds.), Atti del XIV congresso della Società Internazionale di Musicologia, Bologna, 1987: Trasmissione e recezione delle forme di cultura musicale. Kassel, 1990, 3 vols., vol. 3 –67Google Scholar

Geiringer, Karl. ‘The Rise of Chamber Music’. In Wellescz, Egon and Sternfield, Frederick (eds.), New Oxford History of Music, vol. VII: The Age of Enlightenment, 1745–1790. Oxford, 1973 –73Google Scholar

Gotwals, Vernon (ed.). Haydn: Two Contemporary Portraits. Madison, WI, 1968Google Scholar

Griffiths, Paul. The String Quartet. London and New York, 1983Google Scholar

Hickman, Roger ‘Leopold Kozeluch and the Viennese “quatuor concertant”’. College Music Symposium, 26 (1986) –52Google Scholar

Hickman, Roger ‘The Flowering of the Viennese String Quartet in the Late Eighteenth-Century’. Music Review, 50 (1989) –80Google Scholar

Hickman, Roger. ‘The Nascent Viennese String Quartet’. Musical Quarterly, 67 (1981) –212Google Scholar

Irving, John. Mozart: The ‘Haydn’ Quartets. Cambridge, 1998CrossRef Google Scholar

Jones, David Wyn ‘The Origins of the Quartet’. In Stowell, Robin (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the String Quartet. Cambridge, 2003 –84Google Scholar

Keefe, Simon P.Mozart’s Viennese Instrumental Music: A Study of Stylistic Re-Invention. Woodbridge and Rochester, NY, 2007Google Scholar

Kerman, Joseph. The Beethoven Quartets. London, 1967Google Scholar

Kirkendale, Warren. Fugue and Fugato in Rococo and Classical Chamber Music. Trans. Kirkendale, and Bent, Margaret, Durham, NC, 1979Google Scholar

Konold, Wulf. Das Streichquartett, von den Anfängen bis Franz Schubert. Wilhelmshaven, 1980Google Scholar

Lehmann-Gugolz, Ursula. Deutsches und italienisches Wesen in der Vorgeschichte des klassischen Streichquartetts. Würzburg, 1939Google Scholar

McFarlane, Meredith, and McVeigh, Simon. ‘The String Quartet in London Concert Life, 1769–1799’. In Wollenberg, Susan and McVeigh, (eds.), Concert Life in Eighteenth-Century Britain. Aldershot, 2004 –96Google Scholar

McVeigh, Simon. Concert Life in London from Mozart to Haydn. Cambridge, 1993Google Scholar

Moe, Orin. ‘The Significance of Haydn’s Op. 33’. In Larsen, Jens Peter, Serwer, Howard and Webster, James (eds.), Haydn-Studies: Washington, DC 1975. New York, 1981 –50Google Scholar

Oboussier, Philippe. ‘The French String Quartet, 1770–1800’. In Boyd, Malcolm (ed.), Music and the French Revolution. Cambridge, 1992 –92Google Scholar

Parker, Mara. ‘Friedrich Wilhelm II and the Classical String Quartet’. Music Review, 54 (1993) –82Google Scholar

Pincherle, Marc. ‘On the Origins of the String Quartet’. Musical Quarterly, 15 (1929) –87Google Scholar

Rosen, Charles. The Classical Style. New York, 1971Google Scholar

Speck, Christian and Sadie, Stanley. ‘Boccherini’ in Oxford Music Online (www.oxfordmusiconline.com) (accessed 8 September 2008)Google Scholar

Speck, Christian. Boccherinis Streichquartette: Studien zur Kompositionsweise und zur gattungsgeschichtlichen Stellung. Munich, 1987Google Scholar

Sutcliffe, W. Dean, Haydn: String Quartets, Op. 50. Cambridge, 1992CrossRef Google Scholar

Sutcliffe, W. Dean ‘Haydn, Mozart and their Contemporaries’. In Stowell, Robin (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the String Quartet. Cambridge, 2003 –209Google Scholar

Walter, Horst. ‘Zum Wiener Streichquartett der Jahre 1780 bis 1800’. Haydn-Studien, 7 (1998) –314Google Scholar

Webster, James. ‘Towards a History of Viennese Chamber Music in the Early Classical Period’. Journal of the American Musicological Society, 27 (1974) –47CrossRef Google Scholar

Yudkin, Jeremy. ‘Beethoven’s “Mozart” Quartet’. Journal of the American Musicological Society, 45 (1992) –74CrossRef Google Scholar

Book contents

23 - The string quartet

Summary

Access options

References

Save book to Kindle

Save book to Dropbox

Save book to Google Drive