Any general advice on string quartet writing?

[adrianallan]

Hello

Somebody on another forum said that they enjoyed playing my trio for strings, but they have made suggestions for improvement. Always great to get insight from players about scoring issues.

But they now want me to write a short quartet.

I've never actually written for quartet, so any general advice from people more experienced than me would be appreciated.

Which scores should i study? I have been looking at haydn's Lark quartet, which is a charming little piece. I wont be writing anything too demanding or atonal, so disregarding Carter, etc, who else should i study?

Other issues that spring to mind are things like, is it common to give the viola a few solo section, ie. where the viola takes the melodic lead for a change. Similarly, how often does the cello take the lead. Does the second violin ever take the lead, or is it always the first?

Are double stops mainly used in the cadences?

I know that score studying is the way forward for me, but if anyone has had experience with this medium, your general suggestions would be much appreciated.

[Joseph]

Mar 9, 2013 1:58:43 GMT adrianallan said:

Which scores should i study? I have been looking at haydn's Lark quartet, which is a charming little piece. I wont be writing anything too demanding or atonal, so disregarding Carter, etc, who else should i study?

Adrian, are you considering writing in someone else's style?  If so I find 2 contemporary tools invaluable for such an endeavor; the International Music Score Library Project and Spotify.  I have had about an 85% success rate finding recordings on Spotify.  Of course the IMSLP offers public domain scores only.  Still, the number of available scores should be more than enough for you to find whatever you may be seeking.  I think your other questions are mostly a personal choice.  Good luck (I've been writing a piece for SQ for more than 10 years now ).  You may want to look at Jordi's sub-page and may consider contacting him directly.  Joseph

[Ed Sharpe]

I enjoy/like the Bartók quartets; I have also enjoy the quartets of Shostakovitch.

I feel that the best string quartets give equal weight to all four of the “voices”. A dialogue between all four.

As for double stopping it changes the “weight” of the texture. I would make sparse use of double stops (I think in my string quartet I did not use a single double stop, but I could be remembering incorrectly about that.) Do not forget the use of pizzicato and other such techniques.

Do not be afraid of rests. That is while the string quartet is about four voices they all do not have to “speck” at the same time, make use of trio, duet and even solo textures.

[adrianallan]

Thanks for the tips so far. It will be in my own voice, as I never do pastiche. I will look for and listen to shostakovich and bartok. I have heard that writing a string quartet is more challenging than full orchestration. As each part is left totally exposed.

[Ed Sharpe]

Mar 9, 2013 7:04:22 GMT adrianallan said:

... I have heard that writing a string quartet is more challenging than full orchestration. As each part is left totally exposed.

Exactly! Each part has to stand on its own.

[Deleted]

It's true, in a quartet each of the four voices is more exposed, which makes it harder to write for than an orchestra with its many voices. But you've already done a trio, where the three voices are even more exposed, making it even harder to write for, so you shouldn't have any more problems with a quartet.

As for role models, have you thought of Dvo?ák? Not quite as antiquated as Haydn (not that there's anything wrong with antiquated for study purposes), and not quite as rebarbative as Carter. Not quite as serious as either of them. Also, I have to admit, a particular personal favourite of mine.

[adrianallan]

Mar 9, 2013 10:34:02 GMT @tonyj said:

It's true, in a quartet each of the four voices is more exposed, which makes it harder to write for than an orchestra with its many voices. But you've already done a trio, where the three voices are even more exposed, making it even harder to write for, so you shouldn't have any more problems with a quartet.

As for role models, have you thought of Dvo?ák? Not quite as antiquated as Haydn (not that there's anything wrong with antiquated for study purposes), and not quite as rebarbative as Carter. Not quite as serious as either of them. Also, I have to admit, a particular personal favourite of mine.

Dvorak is good advice. I know that he was a viola and cello player and his orhcestral string parts are always interesting - I noticed that he didn't just double the bass and the cello at the octave. I will have a look at his quartets.

Also I'm what they call an experiential learner. I have all 3 string instruments in my room, and although I'm a beginner and I'm not very good at playing/ intonation on any of them, fiddling around may spark off some ideas.

[Ed Sharpe]

I second the Dvorak recommendation!

[wizzarts]

von Bülow: "A string-quartet can be compared with four older gentlemen having a meaningful conversation where every single opinion counts...."

[adrianallan]

Yes, i agree with the above comment.

Im having fun doing my "research" on this. One noticeable characteristic is that a melody is often passed from one player to the next, so it's quite a democratic conversation.

Enjoyed the Dvorak, a fine piece. One of my favourite composers.
Also enjoyed no. 2 in D major by Borodin.

At the stage in life where i can reallly appreciate this music in all its glory. Sad to say that in my youth I might have found it "boring". But you live and learn...

[Kevin]

Finding a string quartet would be a good start. Post your quartets here as well so that others can be involved in it's evolution. I can certainly pass on any scores for some kind of evaluation to people that I know.

[ceg]

"Other issues that spring to mind are things like, is it common to give the viola a few solo section, ie. where the viola takes the melodic lead for a change. Similarly, how often does the cello take the lead. Does the second violin ever take the lead, or is it always the first?"

yes, I would say it is very common to give all four instruments their chance to "shine". That includes both viola and second violin! See Haydn's emperor quartet for a classic example ofthis.

I would second (or is it third) Ed Sharpe's composer recommendations and add a couple of my own. It can be instructive to compare Mozart string quartets against those of Haydn. They played in a quartet together - Haydn (I think) played one of the violins and Mozart the viola - and as a not very good violist, I would say that the Haydn viola parts are noticeably less hard than the Mozart viola parts, not sure what this says about Mozart's and Haydn's views on how good a viola player Mozart was. Beethoven quartets are also well worth knowing. The late quartets (op 127 onwards) are sublime, though I'm not sure I would use the Grosse Fuge as a compositional model! The Rasoumovsky quartets are great example of how to liberate the cello from merely playing the bass.

I would also suggest Britten (particularly his Simple Symphony, and his 3rd Quartet), Tippett (his second string quartet) as well as the Bartok and Shostakovich (his 8th String quartet is most well known) as C20 examples. Bartok actually provides something of an interesting insight into the late quartets of Beethoven.

I would also recommend trying to make the quartet parts not too hard - chamber music players like to sit down and basically play through a piece without having to practice it too much first. Which isn't to say that you must make it light-weight. Also, look at the parts individually and see if they "make sense" - this is what the quartet players will be faced with, they won't (normally) have the full score. In general think more about counterpoint than harmony (yes, you do need to make sure that chords have a third in them), as often the horizontal lines are more important than the vertical ones (but this is also true of trios, probably more so!)

Also think of the possible divisions of the quartet - not only 4 instruments playing together (unison, homophonic, heterophonic or countrapuntal), but 1 + 3 (4 combinations) and 2 + 2 (3 combinations), not forgetting 3 instruments playing together and one silent (4 combinations), or two instruments playing and two silent (6 combinations) or a solo instrument with 3 silent (4 combinations). And that is before I start to consider double-stopping (I agree with the recommendation to use very sparingly). Britten's 3rd string quartet and Bartok's 6th string quartet give lots examples of many of these. Far too many to use in a single short movement!

To know what can be possible (though outside the scope of what you're aiming to do), several of Ferneyhough's quartets are avilable on YouTube with the scores as the video...

Lastly, write more than one! The sring quartet can be a very satisfying medium (especially if you have a quartet that will play them in the flesh, and give you feedback!), and you may well find, like many composers in the past, that you keep returning to writing them throughout your life.

ceg

[adrianallan]

Thanks, charles for this detailed reply.

I made a start before easter, then got distracted, and very soon I will hopefully adding the next stage to what I have already created. I will listen to your recommendations before I do.

[ceg]

Hi Adrian,

I came across a compilation of early C20 string quartet extracts on You Tube (though it does include Debussy's 1896 effort as C20!) posted by someone I was at university with, which you may find interesting, to show you the breadth of what can be done with 4 stringed instruments:



Charles

[Joseph]

not sure what your goal is but a new CD was just released by Brooklyn Rider entitled A Walking Fire.  It might be good to have a listen to how this quartet is approaching the literature.  The first few tracks I've heard have a bit of a klezmer mix though I have not yet heard the entire album.  bartok is the oldest composer in the collection;


"A Walking Fire features a seminal string quartet by Béla Bartók alongside new works by contemporary Russian-American composer Lev “Ljova” Zhurbin and Brooklyn Rider’s own Colin Jacobsen."

[Deleted]

Hi Adrian,
I wrote some pieces for string quartet some while ago, nothing difficult or groundbreaking but just nice for the ear (at least I hope they are...). What I did was using my own piano solo pieces and rewrote them for string quartet while having a great book at hand titled From Piano to Strings. That book shows how you can translate typical piano idioms into string idioms.

Here is the book I mean:
www.alexanderpublishing.com/Products/A-Practical-Handbook--From-Piano-to-Strings---BookMIDIWorkbookAudio-Bundle__OrchPrac-PnoStgs-Audio-MIDI.aspx

And here are some of my string quartet pieces that i worked on with this book:
www.andrevanharen.com/stringquartetmoments.htm

I think it really helps to work out some piano pieces first before writing directly for string quarts, it takes away to need for creating the music itself and only focus on string problems. Hope this helps.

If you like, I can post some piano versions of my score and their string quartet version so you can have a look at what I did.

best,
André