String Quartet (Webern) it with a letter saying that the piece was "purely lyrical" and comparing it to the two and three movement piano sonatas of Ludwig van Beethoven. The piece was first published in 1939 by Boosey & Hawkes, and was the last of Webern's works to be published in his lifetime. In 1955 another edition appeared from Universal Edition. String Quartet (Webern) The String Quartet, Op. 28 by Anton Webern is written for the standard string quartet group of two violins, viola and cello. It was the last piece of chamber music that Webern wrote (his other late works include two
String quartet characterization and drama in the individual-pitted-against-the-mass vein, the writer of string quartets must perforce concentrate on the bare bones of musical logic. Thus, in many ways the string quartet is pre-eminently the dialectical form of instrumental music, the one most naturally suited to the activity of logical disputation and philosophical enquiry. Quartet composition flourished in the Classical era, with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven and Franz Schubert following Haydn in each writing a number of quartets. A slight slackening in the pace of quartet composition occurred in the later 19th century, in part due to a movement away from