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.
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.
The Vermeer Quartet was a string quartet founded in 1969 at the Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont and active until 2007.
Håvard Gimse is a Norwegian classical pianist from Kongsvinger, and the brother of the cellist Øyvind Gimse. He has received the Griegprisen (1996) and the Steinway Award (1995). Gimse has done several recordings for Naim Audio, Naxos Records, Sony Classical Records, Chandos Records and Simax.
The Fine Arts Quartet is a chamber music ensemble founded in Chicago, United States in 1946 by Leonard Sorkin and George Sopkin. The Quartet has recorded over 200 works and has toured internationally for 77 years, making it one of the longest enduring major string quartets. In its history, the Quartet has had two leaders: Leonard Sorkin, from 1946 to 1981, and Ralph Evans, from 1982 to the present. Its current members are violinists Ralph Evans and Efim Boico, violist Gil Sharon, and cellist Niklas Schmidt.
The Sacconi Quartet is a UK-based classical music string quartet founded in 2001 by four graduates of the Royal College of Music, London, UK. The Quartet has achieved widespread recognition, having given recitals in leading British concert halls and at music festivals in Britain and across Europe. They have also won several major prizes in string quartet and chamber music competitions. The Quartet is named for the outstanding twentieth-century Italian violin maker and restorer Simone Sacconi, whose book The Secrets of Stradivari is considered an indispensable reference for violin makers.
The Kodály Quartet is a string quartet founded in 1966 in Budapest, Hungary, originally as Sebestyén Quartet. In 1969, with the approval of the Ministry of Cultural Affairs of the Hungarian Republic, the quartet assumed its present name in honour of the Hungarian composer Zoltán Kodály.
The Vlach Quartet is the name of two consecutive classical string quartet musical ensembles, based in Prague, both of which were founded by members of the Vlach family. The original Vlach Quartet was founded by Josef Vlach in 1950 and wound up in 1975. In 1982 the New Vlach Quartet was founded by his daughter Jana Vlachova, with guidance her father, and came to be known as the Vlach Quartet of Prague, and is still active as a musical ensemble.
The Naxos Quartets are a series of ten string quartets by the English composer Peter Maxwell Davies.
Ronald Geoffrey Corp, is a composer, conductor and Anglican priest. He is founder and artistic director of the New London Orchestra (NLO) and the New London Children's Choir. Corp is musical director of the London Chorus, a position he took up in 1994, and is also musical director of the Highgate Choral Society.
Martin Outram is an English viola soloist and violist of the Maggini Quartet.
The Cassatt String Quartet was founded in 1985. Originally the first participants in Juilliard's Young Artists Quartet Program, the Quartet has gone on to win many teaching fellowships and awards and has toured internationally. Named after impressionist painter Mary Cassatt, the quartet is based in New York City.
The New Zealand String Quartet is New Zealand's only full-time string quartet. The current formation of musicians consists of Helene Pohl, Monique Lapins, Gillian Ansell (viola) and Rolf Gjelsten (cello). Former members include Wilma Smith, Josephine Costantino and Douglas Beilman.
David Froom was an American composer and college professor. Froom taught at the University of Utah, the Peabody Institute, and the University of Maryland, College Park, and he was on the faculty at St. Mary's College of Maryland from 1989 until his death in 2022. He has received awards and honors from the Guggenheim Foundation, the American Academy of Arts and Letters,, the Fromm Foundation at Harvard, the Koussevitzky Foundation of the Library of Congress, the Barlow Foundation, and was a five-time recipient of an Individual Artist Award from the State of Maryland.
The String Quartets, Op. 50, were composed by Joseph Haydn in 1787. The set of six quartets was dedicated to King Frederick William II of Prussia. For this reason the set is commonly known as the Prussian Quartets. Haydn sold the set to the Viennese firm Artaria and, without Artaria's knowledge, to the English publisher William Forster. Forster published it as Haydn's Opus 44. Haydn's autograph manuscripts for Nos. 3 to 6 of the set were discovered in Melbourne, Australia, in 1982.
String Quartet No. 1 in D major, Op. 25, by English composer Benjamin Britten, was written in the U.S. in 1941.
The String Quartets, Op. 3 are a set of six string quartets published under Joseph Haydn's name by the French music publisher Bailleux in 1777 and subsequently reprinted in 1801 by Maison Pleyel as part of a series of the complete Haydn string quartets.
Arthur Bliss's String Quartet in A major, Op. 4 is the first of four string quartets the composer wrote. Composed in 1913 while Bliss was still a student at Cambridge, the work was withdrawn from performance by the composer in 1919, along with most of his pre-war chamber music, and not revived until the 1990s.
The English String Quartet was founded in 1902 by a group of students from the Royal College of Music: Thomas F. Morris, Herbert H. Kinsey, Frank Bridge (viola) and Ivor James (cello). The name wasn't officially adopted until 1908. Morris left to join the Royal Flying Corps in 1915 and was replaced by Marjorie Hayward as leader. Bridge became an occasional player from the same year and was sometimes replaced by Alfred Hobday. Edwin Virgo took over as 2nd violin in 1918. The original group disbanded in 1925.
The Carducci String Quartet consist of Matthew Denton (violin), Michelle Fleming (violin), Eoin Schmidt-Martin, (viola), and Emma Denton (cello).
