# What is the nature of a string quartet?



## 20centrfuge (Apr 13, 2007)

I'm thinking a lot about string quartets right now with my participation in the fantastic thread for weekly string quartet listening....

*WHAT IS THE TRUE NATURE OF THE STRING QUARTET?*
I read recently while surfing around the internet that Carl Nielsen, the Danish composer, struggled a bit with composing string quartets:

_Nielsen is best known for his symphonies, and it was only with this final, fourth string quartet that *he felt he understood the "true nature of the bowed instruments" and had "got more or less to grips with [the string quartet's] coy, chaste character."*_ 

LINK

The phrases "true nature" and "coy, chaste character" make me think. Is there a personality, temperament or inherent nature to the string quartet? It is, of course, the amalgamation of the expressive personalities of the individual instruments but is also more than that. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

I suck at writing, but what I'm trying to say is that every specific instrument or ensemble has its own unique expressive tendencies - for example, the flute can be energizing, intense, but can also be lonely and vapid. The piano can be percussive, resonant, muddy (among many other things). The trumpet can be brassy, with punch, it can be glorious, it can be warm but it can never, ever do what a violin does in terms of fragility, ethereal sound, pianissimo, sostenuto, etc.

So! What then are the peculiarities of the string quartet? What are the boundaries of it's expressive powers? What can it do well and what can it not do well?


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## Roger Knox (Jul 19, 2017)

20centrfuge said:


> I'm thinking a lot about string quartets right now with my participation in the fantastic thread for weekly string quartet listening....
> 
> *WHAT IS THE TRUE NATURE OF THE STRING QUARTET?*
> I read recently while surfing around the internet that Carl Nielsen, the Danish composer, struggled a bit with composing string quartets:
> ...


All good questions. I'll give it a try. Composers' comments on their own and others' work have to be queried, because they are speaking "in the middle of the battle," without perspective. For example, Nielsen was a professional violinist and surely knew a thing or two about bowed instruments, but he was still concerned to get the string quartet right -- because among composers it has the reputation of being a sophisticated medium requiring musical maturity. As for "chaste," that is because the homogeneity of tone approaches that of a choir, while "coy" suggests the quartet's potential suaveness, especially using vibrato! Peculiarities also include that there's a large middle register where any instrument can be highest or lowest; also they are all agile and can jump about, the first violin no longer being leader necessarily. There are many bowing types and sound effects and a wide dynamic range, though not enough to fill a full-sized orchestra hall. The quartet sounds best in a "wet" hall. Having been a pianist I remember the days when connoiseurs considered the piano a mongrel in combination with strings, compromising the "pure" all-string tone. But that such instruments as piano, guitar, or harp can add to strings a "reverb" effect that with good control is stunning, for anything from a piano-violin duo to piano + string quintet. Much more could be added.


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## Caryatid (Mar 28, 2020)

It's been said many times that a string quartet is a kind of conversation, but for myself I like a string quartet to have drama, drive and even some inequality between the instruments. People complain about the prominence of the cello in Mozart's _Prussian _ quartets, but I think those are the best bits!


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