Edvard Grieg'sString Quartet No. 1 in G minor, Op. 27, is the second of threestring quartets written by the composer. The first, in D minor, was an early work, now lost, written in the early 1860s at the request of his teacher,Carl Reinecke. Thethird quartet, in F major, remained incomplete at the composer's death.[1][2]
Grieg wrote the quartet in 1877–78, while living at a farm inHardanger.[1][3][4][5] He wrote to a friend "I have recently finished a string quartet which I still haven't heard. It is in G minor and is not intended to bring trivialities to market. It strives towards breadth, soaring flight and above all resonance for the instruments for which it is written."[6]
The first performance of the quartet took place in Cologne in October 1878, by a quartet led by the work's dedicatee, violinist Robert Heckmann.[7]
Publication of the quartet was delayed when the composer's preferred publisher,C.F. Peters, initially rejected the quartet because they believed thedouble stopping in some movements would require the work to be rewritten as apiano quartet orquintet. Grieg had to find another publisher, E.W. Fritzsch,[8] and only after the success of that release did C.F. Peters publish their own edition.[9][10]
The work has four movements and lasts around 35 minutes in performance.
English musicologistGerald Abraham, writing in 1948, suggested thatClaude Debussy'sString Quartet, also in G minor, was either consciously or subconsciously modelled on Grieg's quartet. Debussy often disparaged Grieg's abilities as a composer and a pianist.[11]
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