Contents

List of illustrations

Notes on the contributors

Preface

Acknowledgements

Note on pitch

Part I • Social changes and organological developments

1 The string quartet and society

Christina Bashford

2 Developments in instruments, bows and accessories

Robin Stowell

Part II • Celebrated ensembles

3 From chamber to concert hall

Tully Potter

4 The concert explosion and the age of recording

Tully Potter

Part III • Playing string quartets

5 Playing quartets: a view from the inside

David Waterman

6 Historical awareness in quartet performance

Simon Standage

7 Extending the technical and expressive frontiers

Robin Stowell

Part IV • The string quartet repertory

8 The origins of the quartet

David Wyn Jones

9 Haydn, Mozart and their contemporaries

W. Dean Sutcliffe

10 Beethoven and the Viennese legacy

David Wyn Jones

11 The Austro-Germanic quartet tradition in the nineteenth century

Stephen E. Hefling

12 Traditional and progressive nineteenth-century trends: France, Italy, Great Britain and America

Robin Stowell

13 Nineteenth-century national traditions and the string quartet

Jan Smaczny

14 The string quartet in the twentieth century

Kenneth Gloag

15 The string quartet as a foundation for larger ensembles

Colin Lawson

Notes

Select bibliography

Index