The String Quartet

In the coming weeks, on our journey through the world of String Quartets, we will be residing in England, or better: Great Britain, where mainly Felix Mendelssohn had a significant impact on the music scene. He even had some English students, including William Sterndale Bennett (1816-1875). As a teenager, he wrote a String Quartet in G major in the style of the Leipzig School.

Arthur Sullivan was a student in Leipzig as well, but Hubert Parry was in Stuttgart. In his years of schooling, teenaged Sullivan wrote two works for his string quartet: a Romance in G minor, a separate part of a quartet, which we know as the String Quartet in D minor. However, Sullivan became famous for his “light operas”, like The Mikado and Parry gained fame with his large orchestral and choir works. String Quartet No. 1 by teenaged Parry still exudes the feel of Mendelssohn.