# Greatest string quartet of all time?



## Francis Poulenc

For me it is Beethoven's 16th, the last piece he ever completed. What is yours?


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## Antiquarian

Shostakovich's No. 4 in D major op. 83. Sublime. But this is this week's favourite. Next week, it will be a different work.


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## hpowders

Schubert String Quartet in G Major. His last string quartet. Profound.


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## Pugg

Impossible to choose, sorry.


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## Andolink

This one is certainly up there:


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## PlaySalieri

No Mozart so far so I'll name one

K421 D minor quartet.

Otherwise Schubert's last.


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## TurnaboutVox

Some proposals of candidates for greatness amongst 20th century string quartets:


Debussy - String Quartet Op. 10 (OK, written 1893 so a 'cheat')

Bartók - String Quartet No. 5, Sz.102

Schoenberg - String Quartet No. 2, Op. 10

Berg - “Lyric Suite” for string quartet

Webern - String Quartet Op. 28

Britten - String Quartet No. 2, Op.36

Shostakovich - String Quartet No. 8 in C minor, Op.110

Kurtág - Moments musicaux for string quartet, Op. 44


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## EdwardBast

Antiquarian said:


> Shostakovich's No. 4 in D major op. 83. Sublime. But this is this week's favourite. Next week, it will be a different work.


Choosing just one by Shostakovich would be hard for me, let alone a greatest of all time. The 4th is one of my favorites though, along with 5 and 10, and … others.


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## Heck148

Francis Poulenc said:


> For me it is Beethoven's 16th, the last piece he ever completed. What is yours?


Good choice, but I probably go with LvB #14


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## starthrower

TurnaboutVox said:


> Some proposals of candidates for greatness amongst 20th century string quartets:
> 
> Debussy - String Quartet Op. 10 (OK, written 1893 so a 'cheat')
> 
> Bartók - String Quartet No. 5, Sz.102
> 
> Schoenberg - String Quartet No. 2, Op. 10
> 
> Berg - "Lyric Suite" for string quartet
> 
> Webern - String Quartet Op. 28
> 
> Britten - String Quartet No. 2, Op.36
> 
> Shostakovich - String Quartet No. 8 in C minor, Op.110
> 
> Kurtág - Moments musicaux for string quartet, Op. 44


Great selection. I'll add Ravel, Hindemith No.4, Penderecki's 1st, Dutilleux.


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## TurnaboutVox

starthrower said:


> Great selection. I'll add Ravel, Hindemith No.4, Penderecki's 1st, Dutilleux.


Yes, I like those four very much too, I was trying to keep it down to half a dozen but failed.

With the more recent repertoire I like some quartets by Rihm, Henze, Birtwhistle, Ferneyhough, Harvey and Poppe, for instance, but "greatness" and staying power amongst such works is rather hard to predict even for people who know much more about it than I do.


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## starthrower

Would like to get hold of the Henze set, but the Wergo recordings are not readily available at a reasonable price. I like No.3 by Rihm. That's a monumental work!


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## Retyc

Bartók's third quartet


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## KenOC

Francis Poulenc said:


> For me it is Beethoven's 16th, the last piece he ever completed. What is yours?


Oddly, it just occurred to me. Isn't the 13th quartet Op. 130 LvB's last completed work? He wrote it's "official" finale, the one it was published with, after the Op. 135.


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## QuietGuy

Ravel has already been mentioned, so I'll say Borodin #2 in D Major. Wonderful work


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## bharbeke

How about Beethoven's String Quartet No. 3? Right now, that's the best one I have heard.


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## pcnog11

Pugg said:


> Impossible to choose, sorry.


I agree. Quartet is a funny thing, because the simplicity of it with 4 instrument, a quartet music piece could be so complicated and almost surprising to a listener. I have never heard all the quartets in classical music, but if I have to pick one or a set, I would pick the six "Haydn" quartets by Mozart.


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## DiesIraeCX

Lately, Beethoven's 16th has been my favorite, but my vote goes the 14th. 

A few other favorites: Debussy's, Ravel's, and Schubert's 15th.


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## Manxfeeder

Personally, Beethoven's 14th string quartet, hands down. Profound, spiritual, and it even got a shout-out in Band of Brothers.


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## Genoveva

I suppose I'd have to go with either Haydn's "Emperor", or Mozart's "Dissonance", or Beethoven's 14th, or Schubert's "Death & the Maiden", or Dvořák's "American".

But there are many others I like a lot. Two 20th C ones that are very good indeed are: Janáček's String Quartet No 1 "Kreutzer Sonata", and String Quartet No 2, "Intimate Letters". The versions by the Pavel Haas Quartet are my favourites.


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## Retrograde Inversion

Passing over that tiresome and rather meaningless word "greatest". the quartet that I would keep coming back to above all others would have to be the Große Fuge. Its by no means a "pretty" piece; its a good candidate for the most abrasive piece written prior to the twentieth century. It shouts, screams, protests and rages, but ultimately, it _triumphs_. It remains for me one of the most powerful affirmations of life in the face of impending death in all music.


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## jimsumner

Lots of great candidates mentioned so far. I probably would go for LvB's 13th, as originally composed, with the Grosse Fugue.

Favorite 20th century would be Shostakovich 8th, with the Ravel a silly centimeter behind.


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## Bettina

Retrograde Inversion said:


> Passing over that tiresome and rather meaningless word "greatest". the quartet that I would keep coming back to above all others would have to be the Große Fuge. Its by no means a "pretty" piece; its a good candidate for the most abrasive piece written prior to the twentieth century. It shouts, screams, protests and rages, but ultimately, it _triumphs_. It remains for me one of the most powerful affirmations of life in the face of impending death in all music.


Yes, the Grosse Fuge is a fascinating piece. I find it particularly interesting that Beethoven chose the fugal genre as his vehicle for exploring extreme dissonance. The contrapuntal structure of the piece provides unity, even as the harmonic language pushes the boundaries of tonal organization.

I agree that the Grosse Fugue is a triumphant musical utterance. Heard in its original context as the Op. 130 finale, the triumph is extremely powerful and liberating. The mournful tone of the Cavatina, with its choked-up "beklemmt" section, is triumphantly dispelled by the defiant shouts of the Grosse Fugue. It strikes me as a "Nicht diese Töne" moment, in which the implied musical protagonist overcomes his sorrow through an act of will.


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## tdc

~War torn soldier~

That's not Mozart...that's Beethoven.

That was funny. :lol:


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## tdc

I'm not sure what the greatest string quartet is, but my favorite is probably the Ravel.


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## Brahmsian Colors

There is no definitive greatest. How 'bout personal favorite? Based on charm and beauty, I'll go for Borodin's No.2 performed by the Borodin Quartet of course. I also have to include the Debussy and Ravel String Quartets, performed by the Keller Quartet or Quartetto Italiano, though I prefer the Keller in both.


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## Casebearer

My personal favorites are Bartóks fourth, fifth and sixth quartet.


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## jailhouse

Bartok 4 and 5
Shosty 8 and 11


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## jdec

My pick would probably be either the op.131 or op.132.


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## isorhythm

My favorites are Schubert #15, Beethoven #15, Schoenberg #2 and Ravel.


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## Retrograde Inversion

In addition to Große Fuge, there are two other quartets I would single out as having had a particular impact on me. The first is Schoenberg No.1. The more I listen to it, the more I come to think that its one of the absolutely key works in his development. Its still tonal, although a tonality stretched to the limit, but what particularly strikes me about it is its formal procedures, especially the contrast between short and long term. Very often, Schoenberg will start a phrase, but after just a few bars, he will break off and do something different. The resulting fragmentation is very characteristic of what will come in the later, atonal works, and is a key facet of modernist musical language (one I suspect that for many listeners is another of the major difficulties they find with this composer). At the same time, however, there are some very large scale structural developments over the course of this long (40 minutes), single movement work that make for a powerful and convincing impression of a great journey, one filled with all sorts of interruptions, elisions and circumlocutions, yet also a great sense of arrival when it finally comes to its serene and beautiful end. 

The other is Ferneyhough's 2nd. I can't claim to have any real idea of what's going on here, formally or otherwise, but the gestural language that the composer creates is one I find absolutely fascinating.


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## hpowders

isorhythm said:


> My favorites are Schubert #15, Beethoven #15, Schoenberg #2 and Ravel.


A fine eclectic assortment!!


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## Bruckner Anton

I would choose from Beethoven's late quartets, like op.131 for example.


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## KarlHeinz

Feldman's 2nd anyone?


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## Art Rock

Personal favourites would be Schubert's Death and the maiden, Dvorak's American, and Shostakovich 8th.


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## ZJovicic

Beethoven's 14th so far


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## flamencosketches

Not my favorite genre; for whatever reason I almost always prefer a composer's quintets or sextets to their quartets. Just feels like something is missing. That being said, some of the ones I really love are Shostakovich's 8th, Schubert's Death and the Maiden, Ravel's (wish he would have written more), and Debussy's (ditto). Could never choose a greatest. And I don't really "get" Beethoven's quartets. I'm sure there is something there, but they all (talking especially about the late quartets) have a subtlety that kind of eludes me. I do like the fugue at the beginning of No. 14 though.


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## NLAdriaan

Some of my favourites of the genre:
Beethoven 13 (incl Grosse Fuge as final)
Schubert 15
Schumann 3
Zemlinsky 3
Ravel/Debussy 'twins'
Bartok 6
Prokofiev 3
Shostakovich 8
Villa-Lobos 11
Messiaen (Quatuor pour le fin du temps) however not a 'string only' quartet
Martynow: The Beatitudes (version for string quartet)


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## Brahmsianhorn

Beethoven 14
Schubert 14
Debussy
Ravel
Shostakovich 8
Beethoven 11
Mozart Dissonance
Haydn Sunrise
Bartok 4
Borodin 2


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## LezLee

Agree with Ravel & Borodin 2 

Add Dvorák No. 12 (‘American’)


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## Littlephrase

Let’s not forget the two great Janáček quartets.


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## David Phillips

I have a soft spot for Franck's string quartet - very long, but very beautiful.


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## LAS

Thanks to Andolink for the link to Haydn Op 20, #3. I'd never heard it before. I agree that it should be ranked near the top.


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## Kjetil Heggelund

What happens if you can't choose?


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist

It has to be:
Beethoven 13
Beethoven 14
Beethoven 15
Beethoven 16
I might have to add Beethoven 12 as well

The late Beethoven string quartets and sonatas have such a unique and transcendent quality to them.


But these distinctions are meaningless, and there are plenty of great string quartets out there by many composers.


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## hammeredklavier

BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist said:


> I might have to add Beethoven 12 as well


The first movement from the 12th is actually the next most memorable late Beethoven string quartet 'first movement' to me, after the one from the 14th.



stomanek said:


> No Mozart so far so I'll name one
> 
> K421 D minor quartet.


That one's good,



hammeredklavier said:


> chromatic modulation and motivic build in sections such as:
> 
> 
> 
> interesting chromatic and diatonic lines and canonic imitations at:
> 
> 
> 
> thematic variations and inner harmonies at:
> 
> 
> 
> the coda where Mozart emphasizes the ominous 4 note motif with 'painful' chromatic descending lines:


K464 also deserves a mention if one considers both artistry and significance. It's hard to name another single string quartet that had as much importance to another guy in history as K464. I don't think even Shostakovich took this much influence from Beethoven's 14th, or Stravinsky did this much from Grosse Fuge.

_"According to Czerny, Beethoven once exclaimed about Mozart's K464: "That's what I call a work! In it, Mozart was telling the world: 'Look, what I could do for you if you were ready for it!' (5: On the Proper Performance of All Beethoven's Works for the Piano, p. 8" (Kinderman: 53). _http://www.raptusassociation.org/czerny_e2.html

_"When he buckled down to composing his op.18, he copied out works by Haydn (op.20/1) and Mozart (K387, K464) in order to hone his knowledge of the genre." _http://www.eclassical.com/shop/17115/art25/4743925-be37e5-3760135100378_01.pdf#page=18

https://www.cambridge.org/core/jour...ed-from-k464/D41298CFD2EE4AC1639C8CDB3A887E45
_"Beethoven imitated Mozart's String Quartet in A major K464 more openly than any other work by a fellow composer. Yet critics have never explained his fascination with the fifth 'Haydn' quartet. This article argues that Beethoven responded to a rare and unexplored transformation of sonata form in which the primary theme returns at its original pitch in the secondary area. This preserves the melody of the theme, but reinterprets its harmonic and schematic function. Mozart explored this device with unusual rigour in k464, recalling the primary theme at pitch in both outer movements. The two primary themes share a common chromatic line whose invariant return wittily probes late eighteenth-century tonal conventions.

Beethoven emulated Mozart's harmonic design in his own Quartet in A major, Op. 18 No. 5, and even intensified its more problematic features. He imitated k464 most literally in the finale of the 'Kreutzer' Sonata, which provided a model for similar harmonic experimentation in the Sonata in G major Op. 31 No. 1, the 'Waldstein' Sonata and the first 'Razumovsky' quartet. k464 suggests an important source for Beethoven's use of chromatic elements to problematize tonal and thematic function, a practice most evident in the 'Eroica' Symphony."_






And I think Haydn's Op.76 Nos.1, 2 are also gorgeous


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## Strange Magic

LezLee said:


> Agree with Ravel & Borodin 2
> 
> Add Dvorák No. 12 ('American')


And to those I'll add Prokofiev No.2; also Schubert _Death and the Maiden_.


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## fluteman

So many great ones, but some of the most memorable for me: Haydn Op. 76 No. 4 ("Sunrise"), Mozart K. 465 ("Dissonance"). Beethoven Op. 131, Dvorak Op. 96 ("American"), Debussy, Ravel, and several of Bartok, Prokofiev and Shostakovich, all of which have been mentioned here. Brahms, Smetana, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Borodin, Zemlinsky and Ligeti get very honorable mentions from me.
One that hasn't been mentioned here is Elliott Carter's No. 2. It made quite an impact on me heard in a live recital of all five of Carter's quartets by the Pacifica Quartet with the composer in the audience.


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## fluteman

fluteman said:


> So many great ones, but some of the most memorable for me: Haydn Op. 76 No. 4 ("Sunrise"), Mozart K. 465 ("Dissonance"). Beethoven Op. 131, Dvorak Op. 96 ("American"), Debussy, Ravel, and several of Bartok, Prokofiev and Shostakovich, all of which have been mentioned here. Brahms, Smetana, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Borodin, Zemlinsky and Ligeti get very honorable mentions from me.
> One that hasn't been mentioned here is Elliott Carter's No. 2. It made quite an impact on me heard in a live recital of all five of Carter's quartets by the Pacifica Quartet with the composer in the audience.


I obviously forgot to add Schubert's nos. 13, 14 and 15. No doubt the omission has shocked you all into silence.


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