String Quartets (Schumann)

The three string quartets by Robert Schumann were composed in 1842. They are:

The quartets Op. 41 are Schumann's only string quartets, and were composed after studying the quartets of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. He had sketched some ideas for quartets a few years before 1842, but they had been abandoned; in February of that year he considered again writing quartets.

Because of depression he was unable to compose for a period; eventually on 4 June he started work on the first quartet, and he finished the third quartet on 22 June. They were first performed on 13 September, as a present for his wife Clara on her 23rd birthday.

They were first published in 1843 by Breitkopf & Härtel, and dedicated to Felix Mendelssohn.

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