Grove's dictionary of music and musicians

;
Stanford's quartets from Tennyson's 'Princess '
QUARTET
violin, viola, and violoncello. 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 »
symphony in which the piano takes the place
of the 'string quartet,' and the other instruments—usually
violin, viola, and violoncello
—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, Schumann and Goetz one each,
while Brahms (opp. 23, 26, 60) and the modem
composers have favoured this form of quartet
still more.
III. Vocal quartets are so called whether
accompanied by instruments or not. The fourpart
songs of Mendelssohn have been mentioned.
For many years no oratorio was considered
complete without its unaccompanied quartet,
Spohr having set the fashion with ' Blest are
the departed ' in the Last Judgment.' ' Modem
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.
[Brahms's first set of ' Liebeslieder ' for piano
duet and four voices ad libitum, was one of the
compositions which began his popularity in
England ; in the second set, and in opp. 92,
103, and 112, he has left notable exa,mples.
Hensohel's ' Serbisches Liederspiel,' op. 32 ;
'
Walford Davies's Pastorals ; '
and Ernest
Walker's songs from England's Helicon, may
also be mentioned.]
IV. The whole body of stringed instruments
in the orchestra is often incoiTeotly 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 violoncello
and double bass on separate staves ; in Germany
(and in the present day in England) these
instruments are grouped apart, a practice which
is decidedly unwise, seeing that the double bass
requii'es the support of the violoncello to give
the tone firmness, more especially the German
four-stringed instrument, the tone of which is
so much lacking in body.
V. The term is also applied to the performers
of a quartet, as well as to the composition
itself. F. c.
VI. The word is used of a set of stringed
instruments, corresponding to the old phrase
'
a chest of vials.' Although, accurately speaking,
quartets of musical instruments were not
employed in chamber music, as we understand
the term, until the era of Monteverde (1568-
1643), yet the literature and art records of past
centuries seem to point to the existence of 'sets'
ofinstruments, analogous in pitch to the soprano,
QUARTET
alto, tenor, and bass voices, from very early
times. Some ground for this assumption may
be found in the following examples:— The
concert of eight flutes (in four sizes) discovered
on one of the tombs in the Necropolis of Gizeh,
dating— according to Lepsius— from the fifth
Dynasty (b.c. 2000) which are reproduced
in Carl Engel's Catalogue of the Exhibition
of Musical Instruments, South Kensington
Museum, 1874. Certain Hebrew coins in the
British Museum ascribed to Simon Maccabaeus
(of the second century of the Christian era)
depicting lyres differing in size, shape, and
number of strings, and a pertinent passage,
quoted from Aristides Quintilianus (about B.C.
110, in Burney's History ofMusie, vol. i. p. 513).
Mention may also be made of the string trio portrayed
on the splendid Greek Vase in the Munich
Museum. The three figures, grouped in the
manner of our modern trio performers, appear
to be playing ensemble music. Two of the
performers have lyres of different sizes and
stringing, whilst the third, Polyhymnia, plucks
a small harp.
Passing hence to the 11th century, it would
appear from Dr. Kuhlmann's Geschichte der
Bogeninslrwmente, that a ' set ' of crouths is to
be seen in an old MS. prayer-book of that period
(vide Getetbuch des JErzh. Leopold d'Heil von
Osterreich. Bibl. zu Kloster Neuburg bei Wien,
Codex, No. 98, Fol. 110, XI Jahrh.). Four
centuries later (April 14, 1401) Charles VI.
granted 'Lettres-Patentes,' to the Society of
Minstrels who styled themselves 'joueurs d'lustruments
tant hant que has,' and in the following
century the ' sets ' of viols began to make
their appearance. In Martin Agricola's Musica
InstruTmntalis deutsch (1528), woodcuts of a
complete quartet of viols may be seen, as also
'
Rebecs,' in four different sizes, which he designates,
'Discantus,' ' Altus,' 'Tenor,' 'Bassus.' [In
the same year, in the Oortigiano of Bald.
Castiglione, there is a reference to music played
on 'quattro viole da arco.'] In 1566, Andreas
Amati (see that name) made the famous set of
bow instruments for the French King Charles IX.
It consisted of twelve large and twelve small
pattern violins, six tenors and eight basses, and
in all probability these instruments were the
finest examples of this maker's work. On the
backs were painted the arms of France and other
devices, and the motto 'Pietate et Justitia.'
During the French revolution the mob took
these instruments out of the chapel at Versailles
(on Oct. 6 an^ 7, 1789), and destroyed all but
two violins which were afterwards recovered by
Viotti's pupil, J. B. Cartier. One of the small
violins is now, or was recently, the property of
Mr. George Somes. In the following century
numbers o'f Chests ' of Viols ' (two trebles, two
tenors, two basses), for the performance of the
elaborate compositions in parts, called Fantasies,'
' were made, and the growing ' adoption