String quartet movements with a large-scale structure similar to that of a symphony: 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. Many other chamber groups can be seen as modifications of the string quartet: Further expansions have also been produced such as the String octet by Mendelssohn. Notably, Schoenberg included a soprano in the last two movements of his second string quartet, composed in 1908. This instrumentation of adding a voice is succeeded by Hindemith , Finzi, Respighi, Ginastera,
String Quartet No. 15 (Villa-Lobos) String Quartet No. 15 (Villa-Lobos) String Quartet No. 15 is one of a series of seventeen works in the medium by the Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos, and was written in 1954. A performance lasts approximately nineteen minutes. Villa-Lobos composed his Fifteenth Quartet in 1954, working on it at the Tamanaco Hotel in Caracas, Venezuela and completing the score in New York. It was first performed by the Juilliard String Quartet (Robert Mann and Isidore Cohen, violins; Raphael Hillyer, viola; Claus Adam, cello) on 19 April 1958 in the Coolidge Auditorium of the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., as part of