String quintet in 17th century Italy and can be seen as early as 1607 in Claudio Monteverdi's opera, "L'Orfeo". It can also be applied to the standard five-part orchestral string section: first violins, second violins, violas, cellos, and double basses. String quintet A string quintet is a musical composition for five string players. As an extension to the string quartet (two violins, a viola, and a cello), a string quintet includes a fifth string instrument, usually a second viola (a so-called "viola quintet") or a second cello (a "cello quintet"), or occasionally a double bass. Notable examples of classic "viola quintets", in
String Quartet No. 14 (Villa-Lobos) String Quartet No. 14 (Villa-Lobos) String Quartet No. 14 is the one of a series of seventeen works in the medium by the Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos, and was written in 1953. A performance lasts approximately seventeen minutes. Villa-Lobos composed his Fourteenth Quartet in Rio de Janeiro in 1953 on a commission from the University of Michigan for the Stanley Quartet (Gilbert Ross and Emil Raab, violins; Robert Courte, viola; Oliver Edel, cello), to whom the score is dedicated. The Stanley Quartet gave the first performance in Ann Arbor as part of the sixty-ninth concert of the University of Michigan