Despite the 1516 woodcut shown above which depicts Plato, Aristotle, Hippocrates and Galen1 playing as a string quartet, it is Joseph Haydn (1732-1809) who is generally credited with having established the string quartet. Previous composers had written works for two violins, a viola and a cello, but it was Haydn who was to impose upon the quartet the classical form which gave it so much potential.
Before Haydn, Gregorio Allegri (1582-1652) and Alessandro Scarlatti (1660-1725) had composed works for two violins, a viola and a cello, but they were different in style, with the cello supplying the traditional accompaniment role of the "basso continuo" and they failed to inspire further works. Giovanni Battista Sammartini (c.1700-1775) also had previously composed several such works but while they were freer from the constraints of the "basso continuo" they lacked Haydn's classical structure. But even in his early works before his ideas about form had become established Haydn denied that these composers influenced him, rather he credited Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (1714-88) as a source of inspiration. Although C.P.E. Bach never composed a string quartet, but Haydn's compositions do indeed show the same innovative irregularities that can be heard in Bach's piano works.
As Haydn progressed, although he retained his capability to surprise with an unexpected use of silence and tonality, his compositions began to show an internal order and symmetry which is now referred to as the classical style. Within this regularity Haydn's dramatic fluctuations, which he had inherited from the mannerist style, appeared not as whimsical inventions but as logical developments justified by the complete structure of the work. The perfection of the form and its inevitable consequences were the essence of the classical musical style2. Contemplated as frozen architecture a classical composition was like a Greek temple.
Starting in about 1757, the exact date remains disputed, and continuing until 1806, three years before his death, Haydn is credited with having composed 68 string quartets 3. As with his symphonies Haydn used the quartets to develop the classical style, and like the symphonies many of the quartets have been given individual names. In accordance with the then custom for chamber music 54 of the quartets were published in sets of six, and most of these sets have also acquired names, for example, the 'Sun', the 'Prussian' and the 'Apponyi'.
Joseph Haydn was not alone in composing numerous string quartets at this time. His contemporary, Luigi Boccherini (1743-1805), a native of Lucca4 in Tuscany, was living and composing quartets in Madrid. In his works he too frees the cello from its traditional accompaniment role of the "basso continuo" and allows it to play in the higher ranges. Boccherini's was to compose over 90 quartets; like Hadyn's they reflect the composers' nature; they are harmonious and good humoured. But Boccherini's works contained little organic development of the musical material. This was the essence of Haydn's style and so, despite Boccherini's works being elegant and popular, it was Haydn's quartets that would provide the model for other composers. Like Mozart, Boccherini would experiment with the form of the string quartet by adding another voice, another instrument, converting it into a quintet. Mozart added a second viola to emphasis the higher range. The remarkable quintet in G minor, KV 516, one of the six quintets he composed, demonstrates the emotional depth achievable with this extended string combination. On the other hand, Boccherini, a virtuoso of the cello, chose that instrument thereby enhancing the lower range 5.
Despite Haydn's efforts to develop a rigorous style for the string quartet the compositions were received with disapproval by some of his contemporaries, who perceived in them a lack of serious content. This reflected a sentiment against instrumental music in general. It was a complaint that began in the middle of the seventeenth century when music without words began to grow in popularity. Until then vocal music had prevailed6. The assumption that music must be accompanied by words dated back to the beginning of western civilization. Plato had defined music as consisting of harmonia, rhythmos and logos and the latter, human reason, was expressed by language7. It was not necessary that the language be of words; a tone poem, a musical painting, a representation or program, could serve almost as well; but without extra-musical language instrumental music was thought to be just pleasant sounds; to lack depth. For Kant in 1790 it was 'more pleasure without culture'; an agreeable, transitional pleasure; appealing to the senses but not the reason; like wallpaper8. If music were to be a 'fine art' then, like a painting or a sculpture, it had to represent something.
But attitudes were changing rapidly at the end of the eighteenth century. In 1810, one year after Haydn's death, E. T. A. Hoffmann published what many musicologists consider the most important review in the history of music. Its subject was Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, its tone philosophical, and its wide acclaim documented the acceptance of 'absolute music'. Such 'formalist' music – music where its theme was it own form rather than something external (like a tree is external to a painting of a tree) - such absolute music, began now to be considered superior to music that represented or accompanied words, rather than inferior as it had been regarded by previous generations9. Embracing the philosophy of German Idealism the nineteenth century talked of absolute music's ability to transcend language and achieve revelation. And if it was the symphony, 'the opera of the instruments' in Hoffmann's phrase, that was initially the prime medium for absolute music, public concerts were soon felt to be less appropriate for contemplation than private performances. Gradually therefore the string quartet became the epitome of absolute music. As Carl Dahlhaus writes:
"Around 1870, Beethoven's quartets became the paradigm of the idea of absolute music that had been created around 1800 as a theory of the symphony: the idea that music is a revelation of the absolute, specifically because it 'dissolves' itself from the sensual, and finally even from the affective sphere."10
Schopenhauer even elevated the source of music's power to a higher plain. He argued that its power lay not in arousing emotions within the listener but was innate in the music itself: music was a representation of cosmic Will11. For Schopenhauer and his followers it was art par excellence and although absolute music was to have its opponents - amongst them Hegel and Wagner - there were many, and there still are, who were convinced of its spiritual power.
The rapid changes that were taking place to the structure of society in the nineteenth century also had consequences for music. Virtually all of Haydn's string quartets had been written in the service of Prince Paul Anton von Esterházy. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (who was to compose 29 string quartets - six of which he dedicated to Haydn) was also supported by a patron and many of his works (including the string quartets K.575, 589 and 590) were written for court occasions. Now the rise of a wealthy and literate bourgeois class produced a demand for public concerts and could finance composers and musicians. The nineteenth century saw the establishment of the first professional quartets.
Composers in that century and its sequel such as Schubert, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Tchaikovsky, Smetana, Brahms, Dvorak, Borodin, Ravel, Sibelius, Debussy, Bartók would expand the string quartet repertoire considerably. Their works would lead the string quartet away from the strict classical form as they gradually explored further possibilities. But their compositions still recall Haydn's thoughts and remain manifestations of absolute music rather than musical representations. Finally between 1938 and 1974 Shostakovich would produce 15 quartets which, when viewed through the distorting lens of socialist realism, would recall the formalist debate two centuries earlier.
