# A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Quartet

From volume 3 of the work.
​QUARTET (Fr. Quatuor; Ital. Quartette). A composition for four solo instruments or voices.
I. With regard to instrumental quartets the favourite combination has naturally been always that of 2 violins, viola, and cello, the chief representatives since the days of Monteverde of soprano, alto, tenor, and bass, in the orchestra: in fact, when 'quartet' only is spoken of, the 'string quartet' is generally understood; any other combination being more fully particularised; and it is to the string quartet we will turn our principal attention. The origin of the quartet was the invention of four-part harmony, but it was long before a composition for four instruments came to be regarded as a distinct and worthy means for the expression of musical ideas. Even the prolific J. S. Bach does not appear to have favoured this combination, though he wrote trios in plenty. With the symphony was born the string quartet as we now understand it—the symphony in miniature; and both were born of the same father, Haydn. Although 24 bars comprise all the first part of the first movement of Haydn's 1st Quartet, we see there the embryo which Beethoven developed to such gigantic proportions.
These first quartets of Haydn seem to us sadly feeble in the present day; thero is not enough flesh to cover the skeleton, and the joints are terribly awkward; but there is the unmistakeable infant quartet, and certainly not more clumsy and unpromising than the human infant. The due proportions are all there too—in fact, there are 5 movements instead of 4, Haydn usually writing two minuets to these early works. In the course of his long life and incessant practice in symphonic composition, Haydn made vast progress, so that the later quartets (op. 71, etc.) begin to show, in the lower parts, some of the boldness which had before been only allowed to the 1st violin. 83 quartets of Haydn are catalogued and printed, while of the 93 of his contemporary Boccherini, scarcely one survives.
Mozart, with his splendid genius for polyphony as well as melody, at once opened up a new world. In the set of 6 dedicated to Haydn we notice, besides the development in form, the development of the idea, which it has only been given to Beethoven fully to carry out—the making each part of equal interest and importance. Theoretically, in a perfect quartet, whether vocal or instrumental, there should be no 'principal part.' The six quartets just spoken of were so far in advance of their time, as to be considered on all sides as 'hideous stuff.' In our time we find little that is startling in them, except perhaps the famous opening of No 6, which will always sound harsh from the false relations in the 2nd and 4th bars.
Mozart's 26 quartets all live, the 6 dedicated to Haydn, and the last 3 composed for the King of Prussia, being immortal.
Those writers whose quartets were simply the echo of Mozart's—such as Romberg, Onslow, Ries, and Fesca—made no advance in the treatment of the four instruments.
It is not our province here to speak of the growth of the symphonic form as exhibited in the string quartet, this subject having been already discussed under Form, but rather to notice the extraordinary development of the art of part-writing, and the manner in which the most elaborate compositions have been constructed with such apparently inadequate materials. In these points the quartets of Beethoven so far eclipse all others that we might confine our attention exclusively to them. In the very first (op. 18, No. 1) the phrase
of the 1st movement is delivered so impartially to each of the four players, as though to see what each can make of it, that we feel them to be on an equality never before attained to. If the 1st violin has fine running passages, those of the 2nd violin and viola are not a whit inferior. Does the 1st violin sing a celestial adagio, the cello is not put off with mere bass notes to mark the time. All four participate equally in the merriment of the scherzo and the dash of the finale. This much strikes one in the earlier quartets, but later, when such writing as the following—selected at random—is frequent,
we find that we are no longer listening to four voices disposed so as to sound together harmoniously, but that we are being shown the outline, ​the faint pencil sketch, of works for whose actual presentation the most perfect earthly orchestra would be too intolerably coarse. The posthumous quartets are hardly to be regarded as pieces written for violins, but we are rather forced to imagine that in despair of finding colours delicate and true enough the artist has preferred to leave his conceptions as charcoal sketches. This fancy is borne out when we note how large a compass the four parts are constantly made to cover, a space of nearly five octaves sometimes being dashed over, with little care for the poorness and scratchiness of tone thus produced.
The 16 quartets of Beethoven are all constantly before the musical public, the last four naturally less frequently than the others.
There is a wide contrast between these stupendous works of genius and the polished and thoroughly legitimate workmanship of Schubert's quartets. Here we find everything done which ought to be done and nothing which ought not. They are indeed irreproachable models. One little point deserves notice here as illustrating the comparative strength of two great men: Beethoven gives frequent rests to one or two of the players, allowing the mind to fill in the lacking harmony, and thus producing a clearness, boldness and contrast which no other composer has attained; Schubert, on the other hand, makes all four parts work their hardest to hide that thinness of sound which is the drawback of the quartet.
Mention of Spohr's quartets might almost be omitted in spite of their large number and their great beauty. Technically they are no more advanced than those of Haydn, the interest lying too often in the top part. They also lose much through the peculiar mannerism of the composer's harmony, which so constantly occupies three of the parts in the performance of pedal notes, and portions of the chromatic scale.
Still more than Schubert does Mendelssohn seem to chafe at the insufficiency of four stringed instruments to express his ideas. Not only this, but he fails, through no fault of his own, in one point needful for successful quartet-writing. Beethoven and Schubert have shown us that the theoretically perfect string-quartet should have an almost equal amount of interest in each of the four parts; care should therefore be taken to make the merest accompaniment-figures in the middle parts of value and character. Tremolos and reiterated chords should be shunned, and indeed the very idea of accompaniment is barely admissible. The quartet, though differing from the symphony only in the absence of instrumental colouring and limitation of polyphony, is best fitted for the expression of ideas of a certain delicacy, refinement and complexity, anything like boldness being out of place, from the weakness of the body of tone produced. Now the chief characteristic of Mendelssohn's music is its broad and singing character, passage-writing is his weak point. Consequently, however good his quartets, one cannot but feel that they would sound better if scored for full orchestra. Take the opening of Op. 44, No. 1, for instance—
In the first place, this is not quartet-writing at all; there is a melody, a bass, and the rest is mere fill-up matter: in the second, we have here as thorough an orchestral theme as could be devised—the ear yearns for trumpets and drums in the fourth bar. A similar case occurs in the F minor Quartet (op. 95), and the expression 'symphony in disguise' has accordingly often been applied to these works. This is curious, because Mendelssohn has shown himself capable of expressing his ideas with small means in other departments. The 4-part songs for male voices, for instance, are absolutely perfect models for what such things ought to be. Schumann (op. 41) is the only writer who can be said to have followed in the wake of Beethoven with regard to using the quartet as a species of shorthand. All his three quartets have an intensity, a depth of soul, which, as with Beethoven, shrinks from plainer methods of expression.
Of the earnest band of followers in this school—Brahms (op. 51, 67), Bargiel, Rheinberger all that can be said is that they are followers. If the quartet is yet capable of new treatment, the second Beethoven who is to show us fresh marvels has not yet come.
II. Quartets for strings and wind instruments are uncommon, but Mozart has one for oboe, violin, viola, and cello. Next to the string quartet ranks the pianoforte quartet, which, however, is built on quite a different principle: here the composition becomes either equivalent to an accompanied trio, or to a symphony in which the piano takes the place of the 'string quartet,' and the other instruments—usually violin, viola, and cello—the place of wind instruments. In any case the piano does quite half the work. Mozart has written two such quartets, Beethoven only one, besides three early compositions, Mendelssohn three, while Brahms (op. 23, 26, 60) and the modern composers have favoured this form of quartet still more.
​III. Vocal quartets are so called whether accompanied by instruments or not. The 4-part songs of Mendelssohn have been mentioned. No modern oratorio is considered complete without its unaccompanied quartet, Spohr having set the fashion with his exquisite 'Blest are the departed' in the 'Last Judgment.' Modern opera is learning to dispense with concerted music, Richard Wagner having set the fashion. To enumerate the fine operatic quartets from 'Don Giovanni' to 'Faust,' would be useless. In light opera the 'Spinning-wheel' quartet in 'Marta' stands pre-eminent.
IV. The whole body of stringed instruments in the orchestra is often incorrectly spoken of as 'the Quartet,' from the fact that until the time of Beethoven the strings seldom played in other than four-part harmony. It is now the usual custom to write the parts for cello and double bass on separate staves, and in Germany these instruments are grouped apart, a practice which is decidedly unwise, seeing that the double bass requires the support of the cello to give the tone firmness, more especially the German four-stringed instrument, the tone of which is so wanting in body.
[ F. C. ]