String Quartet No. 3 (Nielsen) String Quartet No. 3 (Nielsen) Carl Nielsen's String Quartet No. 3 in E flat major or Quartet for Two Violins, Viola and Cello in E flat major, Opus 14, was composed in 1897 and 1898. The third of Nielsen's four string quartets in the official series, it was first performed privately in "Vor Forening" (Our Society) on 1 May 1899 with Anton Svendsen, Ludvig Holm, Frederik Marke and Ejler Jensen as performers. In 1897 and 1898, Nielsen was a busy man. Not only was he preparing to write an opera ("Saul og David") but he spent the summers looking after
String quartet is often in Rondo form or Sonata rondo form, in the tonic key. Some quartets play together for many years in ensembles which may be named after the first violinist (e.g. the Takács Quartet), a composer (e.g. the Borodin Quartet) or a location (e.g. the Budapest Quartet). Well-known string quartets can be found in the list of string quartet ensembles. The early history of the string quartet is in many ways the history of Haydn's journey with the genre. Not that he composed the first quartet of all: before Haydn alighted on the genre there had been several spasmodic examples