Compact and homogeneous, expressive and versatile, the string quartet is the preferred chamber music of composers from Haydn (who invented it as a genre) to the current day. Composers as diverse as Mozart, Shostakovich, Schubert, and Bartók have ennobled its repertory. Through musical analysis, listening, and lecture, this course will illuminate the unique intimacy and formidable intellectual apparatus of the quartet’s rich legacy as the greatest genre of chamber music in Western music. In a chronological survey, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Wolf, Janáček, Bartók, and Berg’s quartets will be examined.