Cambridge Companion To The String Quartet, The

Description:
This Companion offers a concise and authoritative survey of the string quartet by eleven chamber music specialists. Its fifteen carefully structured chapters provide coverage of a stimulating range of perspectives previously unavailable in one volume. It focuses on four main areas: the social and musical background to the quartet's development; the most celebrated ensembles; string quartet playing, including aspects of contemporary and historical performing practice; and the mainstream repertory, including significant 'mixed ensemble' compositions involving string quartet. Various musical and pictorial illustrations and informative appendixes, including a chronology of the most significant works, complete this indispensable guide. Written for all string quartet enthusiasts, this Companion will enrich readers' understanding of the history of the genre, the context and significance of quartets as cultural phenomena, and the musical, technical and interpretative problems of chamber music performance. It will also enhance their experience of listening to quartets in performance and on recordings.

Review:
'Indeed the Companion's readability, together with its broad and timely coverage of topics and its fascinating selection of iconography (notably early photos of string quartets), entice the reader to further explore this music of friends.' Notes

Table of Contents:
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. The Classical style: 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.

Author Biography:
Robin Stowell is Professor and Head of Music at the University of Wales College of Cardiff and a professional violinist who has written extensively on stringed instruments and performance. He is author of Violin Technique and Performance Practice in the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries (1985), Beethoven: Violin Concerto (1998) and The Early Violin and Viola (2001), editor of Performing Beethoven (1994), The Cambridge Companion to the Violin (1992), The Cambridge Companion to the Cello (1999) and co-author of The Historical Performance of Music: An Introduction (1999), all published by Cambridge University Press.