String Quartet Traditional Form
A composition for four players of stringed instruments may be in any form. Quartets written in the classical period usually have four movements with a large-scale structure similar to that of a symphony:
- 1st movement: Sonata form, Allegro, in the tonic key;
- 2nd movement: Slow, in the subdominant key;
- 3rd movement: Minuet and Trio, in the tonic key;
- 4th movement: Sonata-Rondo form, in the tonic key.
Substantial modifications to the typical structure were already achieved in Beethoven's later quartets, and despite some notable examples to the contrary, composers writing in the twentieth century increasingly abandoned this structure.
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