String Quartet No. 14 (Mozart) String Quartet No. 14 (Mozart) The String Quartet No. 14 in G major, K. 387, nicknamed the "Spring" quartet, was composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in 1782 while in Vienna. In the composer's inscription on the title page of the autograph score is stated: ""li 31 di decembre 1782 in vienna"". The work was perhaps edited in 1783. This is the first of the Haydn Quartets, a set of six string quartets he wrote during his first few years in Vienna in honor of the composer Joseph Haydn, who is generally viewed as the father of the string quartet form.
String Quartet No. 2 (Carter) 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. Indeed, Carter instructs the players to sit as far apart as