The term string quartet can refer 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 violinists, a violist, and a cellist.
Chamber music is a form of classical music that is composed for a small group of instruments—traditionally a group that could fit in a palace chamber or a large room. Most broadly, it includes any art music that is performed by a small number of performers, with one performer to a part. However, by convention, it usually does not include solo instrument performances.
In classical music, a piano quintet is a work of chamber music written for piano and four other instruments, most commonly a string quartet. The term also refers to the group of musicians that plays a piano quintet. The genre particularly flourished during the nineteenth century.
A string quintet is a musical composition for five string players. As an extension to the string quartet, a string quintet includes a fifth string instrument, usually a second viola or a second cello, or occasionally a double bass.
Ridolfo Luigi Boccherini was an Italian composer and cellist of the Classical era whose music retained a courtly and galante style even while he matured somewhat apart from the major European musical centers. He is best known for a minuet from his String Quintet in E, Op. 11, No. 5, and the Cello Concerto in B flat major. The latter work was long known in the heavily altered version by German cellist and prolific arranger Friedrich Grützmacher, but has recently been restored to its original version.
In classical music, a string sextet is a composition written for six string instruments, or a group of six musicians who perform such a composition. Most string sextets have been written for an ensemble consisting of two violins, two violas, and two cellos.
Franz Schubert's final chamber work, the String Quintet in C major is sometimes called the "Cello Quintet" because it is scored for a standard string quartet plus an extra cello instead of the extra viola which is more usual in conventional string quintets. It was composed in 1828 and completed just two months before the composer's death. The first public performance of the piece did not occur until 1850, and publication occurred three years later in 1853. Schubert's only full-fledged string quintet, it has been praised as "sublime" or "extraordinary" and as possessing "bottomless pathos," and is generally regarded as Schubert's finest chamber work as well as one of the greatest compositions in all chamber music.
Bernhard Heinrich Romberg was a German cellist and composer.
The six String Quartets, Op. 76, by Joseph Haydn were composed in 1797 or 1798 and dedicated to the Hungarian count Joseph Georg von Erdődy (1754–1824). They form the last complete set of string quartets that Haydn composed. At the time of the commission, Haydn was employed at the court of Prince Nicolaus Esterházy II and was composing the oratorio The Creation as well as Princess Maria Hermenegild Esterházy's annual mass.
The String Quintet No. 1 in A major, Op. 18, was composed by Felix Mendelssohn in 1826 and revised in 1832. The piece is scored for two violins, two violas and cello.
The String Quintet No. 2 in C minor, K. 406/516b, was written by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in 1787. Like all of Mozart's string quintets, it is a "viola quintet" in that it is scored for string quartet and an extra viola. Unlike his other string quintets, however, the work was not originally written for strings. Having completed the two string quintets K. 515 and K. 516, Mozart created a third by arranging his Serenade No. 12 for Winds in C minor K. 388/384a, written in 1782 or 1783 as a string quintet. Although by then Mozart was entering each new work into his catalogue of compositions, he did not enter this quintet, perhaps because it was an arrangement rather than a new work.
The string quintet normally comprises the four instruments of the standard string quartet, plus one additional instrument. This additional instrument may be a viola, cello or double bass. Of these three different combinations, the string quintet with a second viola has the widest repertoire and may be referred to as the standard string quintet. The other two combinations have far fewer important works, though the combination with two cellos includes the string quintet by Schubert, which is widely considered the greatest of all string quintets.
The Boccherini Quintet was a string quintet founded in Rome in 1949 when two of its original members, Arturo Bonucci (cello) and Pina Carmirelli (violin), discovered and bought, in Paris, a complete collection of the first edition of Luigi Boccherini's 141 string quintets, and set about to promote this long neglected music. Since then, they performed all over Italy and Europe and in many parts of the world, including thirteen tours of North America.
The six string quartets Op. 20 by Joseph Haydn are among the works that earned Haydn the sobriquet "the father of the string quartet". The quartets are considered a milestone in the history of composition; in them, Haydn develops compositional techniques that were to define the medium for the next 200 years.
Musica notturna delle strade di Madrid, Opus 30 No. 6, is a quintettino (quintet) for stringed instruments, by Luigi Boccherini, the Italian composer in service to the Spanish Court from 1761 to 1805.
The String Sextet No. 1 in B♭ major, Op. 18, was composed in 1860 by Johannes Brahms and premiered 20 October that year in Hanover by an ensemble led by Joseph Joachim. It was published in 1862 by the firm of Fritz Simrock.
String Quintet No. 2 in G major, Op. 111, is a work by Johannes Brahms composed in 1890 and published in 1891. It is known as the Prater Quintet. Brahms intended it to be his last piece of music, though he later produced a number of piano pieces and the two sonatas for clarinet or viola and piano. The first performance of the Quintet in Vienna on November 11, 1890 was a sensation.
