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. 2 (Carter) possible so that they appear to be playing different pieces simultaneously. String Quartet No. 2 (Carter) The Second String Quartet by American composer Elliott Carter was completed in 1959. It was commissioned by the Stanley String Quartet, and received its first performance in 1960 by the Juilliard String Quartet. The quartet is considerably influenced by the music of European avant-garde composers who were gaining celebrity at this time, particularly Pierre Boulez's "Le Marteau sans maître". This is a much more fragmentary piece than his earlier quartet (1951): the four instruments play very individual roles and unpredictably bounce off one another.