In classical music, a string sextet is a composition written for six string instruments, or a group of six musicians who perform such a composition. Most string sextets have been written for an ensemble consisting of two violins, two violas, and two cellos.
Among the earliest works in this form are the six string sextets Op. 23 of Luigi Boccherini, written in 1776. Other notable string sextets include the Opp. 18 and 36 of Johannes Brahms, the Op. 48 of Antonín Dvořák, the Souvenir de Florence (Op. 70) of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Verklärte Nacht (Op. 4) by Arnold Schoenberg, the op. 10 of Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Erwin Schulhoff's String Sextet (1924) and the String Sextet (1989) of Charles Wuorinen.
Read more about String Sextet: Notable String Sextets
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“A culture may be conceived as a network of beliefs and purposes in which any string in the net pulls and is pulled by the others, thus perpetually changing the configuration of the whole. If the cultural element called morals takes on a new shape, we must ask what other strings have pulled it out of line. It cannot be one solitary string, nor even the strings nearby, for the network is three-dimensional at least.”
—Jacques Barzun (b. 1907)