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
String Quartet No. 4 (Babbitt) String Quartet No. 4 (Babbitt) String Quartet No. 4 is the fourth of six chamber-music works in the string quartet medium by the American composer Milton Babbitt. Babbitt’s Fourth Quartet was written in 1970, almost immediately after the Third Quartet. It is in a single movement, divided into twelve sections marked by (amongst other things) five different metronomic tempos, distributed 1-2-3-1-4-5-1-2-5-3-4-1. In contrast to its predecessor, the Fourth Quartet makes extensive use of coloristic instrumental effects, such as col legno, sul ponticello, and pizzicato glissando. Octave relations are especially important in this work. Contrasts of register, instrumental setting, timbre, duration