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Chamber music
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Chamber music
(Fr. musique de chambre; Ger. Kammermusik; It. musica da camera).
In current usage the term ‘chamber music’ generally denotes music written for small instrumental ensemble, with one player to
a part, and intended for performance either in private, in a domestic environment with or without listeners, or in public in a small
concert hall before an audience of limited size. In essence, the term implies intimate, carefully constructed music, written and
played for its own sake; and one of the most important elements in chamber music is the social and musical pleasure for
musicians of playing together. In this respect, the term has close connections with the peculiarly German concept and practice
of HAUSMUSIK, which refers to the playing of vocal or instrumental music in the home for family entertainment, without audience,
and which was much encouraged in the 19th and 20th centuries. ‘Chamber music’ has also been narrowly defined (for
example, by Cobbett) in terms of ensembles of specific types and sizes; but the term is best understood in a broader sense. To
limit the term to instrumental ensemble repertory, for example, is to exclude such hybrid works as Schubert’s Der Hirt auf dem
Felsen and Vaughan Williams’sOn Wenlock Edge and to bypass such vocal genres as 16th-century madrigals and
19th-century lieder which share many of the characteristics of chamber music. Similarly, although chamber music is often
defined as involving two or more players, much solo repertory such as Renaissance lute music, Bach’s violin sonatas and
partitas and cello suites and several of Beethoven’s piano sonatas fulfils many of the functions and conditions of chamber
music.
1. Usage and scope of the term.

From its earliest usages the term has had a variety of meanings. During the mid-16th century and the 17th, the Italian term
‘musica da camera’ and its German counterpart ‘Kammermusik’ signified ensemble music performed in private, normally by
voices and instruments, either at courts or in the homes of the wealthy. In the same period, variants of the French, German and
Italian terms were also used to denote the musicians engaged in the performance of private music, such as ‘La Musique de la
Chambre’ (established c1530) at the French court, or the ‘Cammermusici’ at the court of Maximilian II (noted in the court
archives, 1540–1600). In such contexts the term could often equally refer to the musical event itself.
During the early 18th century, the term ‘musica da camera’ was used in theoretical writings (Brossard, Dictionaire, 1703;
Mattheson,Das neu-eröffnete Orchestre, 1713) to refer collectively to instrumental and vocal music whose compositional style
and function differed from church and theatre works. In practice these musical distinctions were blurred. As the 18th century
progressed, the term became increasingly associated with instrumental music (e.g. sonatas, trios, quartets) intended for
performance in courtly or domestic surroundings. Even so, it continued to be used for small-scale secular vocal music
performed in private: Burney defined chamber music as ‘cantatas, single songs, solos, trios, quartets[,] concertos, and
symphonies of few parts’ (BurneyH), and Castil-Blaze referred to a host of ‘agreeable pieces’, both vocal and instrumental,
including cantatas, madrigals, scenas, single songs, vocal quartets, romances, boleros, barcarolles and nocturnes (Dictionnaire
de musique moderne, rev. 3/1828 by J.-H. Mees).
It was only towards the end of the 19th century that the term came predominantly to mean instrumental ensemble music for
small forces, performed in either a private or a public context. By the early 20th century the term had become specifically
associated with the quartets, quintets and piano trios of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert and their successors. The
intimate nature of the chamber music repertory, its subtle effects and concentration of musical ideas, allied to the fact that
several composers (including Beethoven, Brahms and Bartók) produced some of their most tightly wrought and intensely
personal works for string quartet, meant that the term ‘chamber music’ also came to connote a repertory grounded in the
intellect. The second half of the 20th century saw a considerable broadening of what is understood by chamber music as the
performed repertory became enlarged, most significantly through the rehabilitation of large amounts of pre-Classical chamber
music and its performance on ‘period’ instruments, though also by the inclusion of contemporary works for chamber forces,
many of which conform only loosely to the traditional characteristics of chamber music.
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This article defines chamber music broadly, within the context of the meanings assigned to it in different eras. It outlines the
types and styles of chamber music that were composed and played from the late 15th century to the 20th and places special
emphasis on the social and functional contexts in which this music flourished. However, historical practices varied from locality
to locality and developed at different rates. In addition, the extent and nature of much private chamber music activity inevitably
remains obscure (although lack of extant documentation does not necessarily imply lack of activity); and quantitative study of
chamber music concerts, repertories and audiences, as they developed from the 19th century onwards, is hampered by the
fact that concert history is still a relatively unexplored field of study. Nevertheless, surviving musical, visual and documentary
sources, along with a few modern, in-depth localized studies, enable some general observations to be made, and a picture to
be drawn of chamber music consumption as a changing balance of participation (i.e. playing or singing) and appreciation
(listening).
For discussion of individual styles and genres of the individual instrumental chamber music forms see ACCOMPANIED KEYBOARD
MUSIC; BALLETTO;CANZONA; CONSORT;FANTASIA; FANTASIA-SUITE;IN NOMINE; NONET;OCTET; PHANTASY;PIANO DUET; PIANO TRIO; PIANO
QUARTET;PIANO QUINTET;QUARTET; QUATUOR CONCERTANT; QUINTET;RICERCARE; SEPTET;SEXTET; SOLO SONATA; SONATA;SONATA DA
CAMERA;SONATA DA CHIESA;SONATINA; SOURCES OF INSTRUMENTAL ENSEMBLE MUSIC TO 1630; SOURCES OF KEYBOARD MUSIC TO 1660,
SOURCES OF LUTE MUSIC; STRING TRIO;STRING QUARTET;STRING QUINTET;SUITE; TRIO;TRIO SONATA; andWIND QUINTET.
For discussion of related vocal genres: seeAIR; BALLAD;BALLETTO; CANTATA;CANZONETTA; CATCH;CHANSON; CONSORT SONG;
FROTTOLA;GLEE, LIED;MADRIGAL; MÉLODIE;SONG; and SONG CYCLE.
2. To 1600.
At medieval courts a distinction existed between ‘loud’ music (alta musica, haute musique), played by such instruments as
trumpets, pipes and drums, used for ceremonial and festive events, and ‘soft’ music (bassa musica, basse musique),
performed by such instruments as harps, fiddles, chamber organs and flutes, sometimes with voices, used at banquets and on
more intimate social occasions. Small-scale ensemble music-making, including the singing and playing of chansons, formed
part of the ‘soft’ music. Initially, music was performed by minstrels rather than courtiers, but during the 15th century this began
to change, and by about 1500, partly as a consequence of the development of humanistic values and new attitudes towards
music, an ability to make music had become an important social accomplishment for courtiers and aristocrats (women as well
as men). Baldassare Castiglione’s courtesy book, Il libro del cortegiano (1528), which ran to more than 20 editions and was
translated into several European languages, recommended that courtiers should be able to sing, read musical notation and
play several instruments; it also highlighted the social importance of being able to make music with others in private. Several
European rulers developed their musical skills to a high level and greatly encouraged music-making among courtiers; one of
the most notable patrons was Isabella d’Este, an accomplished singer, lutenist and player of string and keyboard instruments
who enthusiastically cultivated private music-making at the Mantuan court in the early 16th century and actively encouraged
the composition of frottolas. Most courts continued to maintain ensembles of players of ‘soft’ instruments to perform to courtiers
in private chambers, though a good deal of music-making, such as the performance of madrigals by mixed groups of singers
and instrumentalists, may well have involved a mixture of courtiers and musicians.
The first flowering of private music-making outside European courts dates from the mid-15th century, when the wealthiest
members of what has been termed ‘a new bourgeoisie’ (Fenlon, 1989) began to develop their own musical culture in the home:
affluent households owned instruments such as keyboards and lutes; music lessons were taken; and the advent of music
printing led to wider dissemination of repertory suitable for domestic music-making. Paolo Cortese’s handbook for clerics, De
cardinalatu (book 2, 1510) includes one of the earliest known references to a specially designated music room (‘cubiculum
musicae’). In most cities, amateur musicians comprised a small and élite social group, typically the families of merchants,
diplomats and professional men, and their musical activities were probably modelled on what they knew of court practices. In
addition, a number of musical academies for educated men were established in Italy during the 16th century and imitated
elsewhere; in Nuremberg, for example, a ‘Krenzleingesellschaft’ was set up in 1568 for informal performances of instrumental
and vocal music, accompanied by a meal and, in all likelihood, serious and learned discussion.
A large proportion of the repertory heard in courtly and domestic contexts in the late 15th and 16th centuries was polyphonic
vocal music, in particular madrigals. Where such music was performed by voices alone in small or medium-size rooms, it was
normal to have one singer per part; however, flexible performing practices meant that instruments, such as lutes and viols,
often replaced or doubled some of the voices, probably in accordance with the forces and skills that were available, producing
what are commonly called ‘mixed’ or ‘broken’ consorts. Publishers often described this practice on title-pages: Antonio
Gardano’s Canzoni francese (1539) were ‘buone da cantare et sonare’, and Susato’s 26 chansons (1543) were ‘convenables
tant a la voix comme aussi propices a jouer de divers instruments’. Some madrigals were intabulated for lute or keyboard,
making accompanied solo singing a further performance possibility, while the distinctively English consort song provided an
instrumental ensemble accompaniment for one or more singers. Throughout Europe, Latin-texted sacred music was performed
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in private houses as well as churches, but in England during the second half of the 16th century Latin church music (e.g.
Tallis’s Elizabethan motets and Byrd’s masses) fell out of sacred use and was typically sung and played only in the chamber
(Milsom, 1995).
Although vocal pieces could be played by instruments alone, a small amount of ensemble music ostensibly intended
specifically for instruments also emerged, particularly in Italy and England. Italian composers such as Claudio Merulo and
Florentino Maschera favoured instrumental ricercares and canzonas, and in England a rich and distinctive body of fantasias (or
fancies), cantus-firmus pieces (especially In Nomine settings) and suites of dances was composed by Byrd, Tye and others. In
Nomine and cantus firmus pieces, with their long tenor notes, would have enabled a player of limited skills to hold his or her
own part, although evidence suggests that some of these works were sung rather than played (Edwards, 1970–71; similarly,
some textless ricercares and canzonas may have been vocalized). Viol playing began to be widely cultivated by English
amateurs only during the 1590s, and much of the contrapuntal repertory from before that date was probably originally written
with more skilled players in mind.
By the late 16th century printed sources of instrumental ensemble music were widespread in most of Europe (the English
repertory, however, continued to circulate largely in manuscript, suggesting that consort playing was localized around a small
number of private houses). To perform a piece of ensemble music, players and/or singers sat in a circle, often round a table,
and used either partbooks or a table-book; partbooks were normally laid flat on the table in front of each player (tables with
built-in music stands, as shown in Jan Breughel’s Allegory of Hearing, were probably less usual; seefig.1 [not available online])
and there were no particular instructions as to where people sat. In the case of table-books, there is evidence in English
sources to suggest that care was taken over the physical disposition of the parts in the book, and hence around the table
(Rastall, 1997).
Solo music for keyboard (such as clavichord, spinet, virginals) and lute was also performed in domestic contexts: the repertory
included transcriptions of vocal works, and pieces specially composed for the instruments, including sets of dances and
numerous ricercares and canzonas. Published collections were issued by Antico, Gardano, Attaingnant and others. It is unclear
whether dance suites – written for either solo instruments or consorts – were intended to accompany social dancing; possibly
on occasions when suites were played and listeners were present, some people may have danced to them spontaneously.
See also TABLE-BOOK.
3. 17th and 18th centuries.
(i) 1600–1740.
The emergence of the seconda pratica in Italy around the turn of the 16th century ushered in new musical styles and genres
which affected all spheres of musical composition and practice. Stylistic developments included the spread of basso continuo;
the development of monody and new, distinctive textures arising from the polarity between bass and melody lines; heightened
concern for poetic expression and intelligibility of the words in vocal music; and, as the 17th century progressed, a growing
importance accorded to instrumental music and the violin family and a gradual decline in the popularity of viols. Although opera
was the major innovation of the period, several other genres evolved, including some, most notably the cantata and sonata,
that were particularly cultivated in private environments. A conscious distinction between vocal and instrumental genres meant
that the flexibility of mixing voices and instruments that had prevailed in the 16th-century madrigal gradually disappeared; even
so, pragmatic factors could still play a part in performers’ choice of instruments, especially in the continuo group.
Secular duets and cantatas were the principal small-scale vocal genres to emanate from Italy in the 17th century. By the early
18th century such composers as Caldara, Alessandro Scarlatti and Handel were producing cantatas in large quantities, and the
genre was taking root in Germany (Telemann, J.S. Bach), England (Pepusch, Daniel Purcell) and France (Morin, Bernier);
many were written for performance at court, though some reached the domestic market through publication. Italian works for
small instrumental ensemble initially carried a variety of labels (canzona, sinfonia, sonata), but by 1700 the term ‘sonata’
usually signified the standard instrumental genre for domestic consumption. Publishers were eager to issue this repertory, and
sets of ‘solo’ and ‘trio’ sonatas for one, two or three melody instruments (normally violins but sometimes oboes or flutes) and
continuo by such composers as Corelli (whose op.1, 1681, was much imitated), Albinoni and F.M. Veracini were soon available
across Europe. Sonatas were also composed outside Italy: Henry Purcell, Bach, François Couperin, Handel and Telemann are
the most notable exponents. The trio sonata was characterized by a sharing of contrapuntal interest between the upper
melodic parts – a trait most intensely exploited by Bach – and offered musical interest to both listeners and players.
Although some late 17th-century Italian sonatas and concertos consisting of groups of dances were designated da camera,
and others, usually in four movements and using organ continuo, were labelled da chiesa, in practice there was no strict
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differentiation of style or function (dances occur in da chiesa works, for example, while many church sonatas were played in
chamber contexts and vice versa). Moreover, it is by no means certain that all dance movements in sonatas were intended for
listening alone: some, in particular those labelled ‘per ballare’ or ‘da ballo’, may well have been designed for dancing; likewise
listeners may have danced to those movements whose dance steps they knew.
French chamber music developed its own characteristics of instrumentation and style. Wind instruments (flute, oboe and
bassoon) became prominent in ensemble works, and their use spread to other countries. The bass viol, which enjoyed a
special status in France, maintained a vital presence in French chamber ensembles well into the 18th century. It was used in
cantatas and sonatas, both as a continuo instrument and as a solo part independent of the bass line (as in Montéclair’s Ariane
et Bachus, 1728, and Rameau’s Pieces de clavecin en concerts, 1741). Several composers, including Marais and Couperin,
wrote Pièces for bass viol and continuo.
The older chamber genres did not die out overnight. Italian ensemble madrigals and instrumental music continued to be written
and published until the 1630s and 40s, though basso seguente parts began to be added to madrigals from about 1600 (in 1621
Milanuzzi reprinted Pomponio Nenna’sIl primo libro de madrigali with continuo bass part). At the same time, madrigals for one,
two or more soloists and continuo (by such composers as Caccini, Monteverdi and Bartolomeo Barbarino) came to the fore
before the madrigal ultimately gave way to the accompanied aria, chamber duet and cantata. In France, several collections of
airs either for voice and lute or for several voices were published by Ballard in the first half of the 17th century, though from the
1640s the lute began to be replaced by continuo. The dance suite for solo instrument (most typically keyboard) survived until
the mid-18th century, embracing new dances and idioms and developing a host of localized identities across Europe.
In England domestic consort-playing and composition were sustained well into the 17th century, much longer than elsewhere,
perhaps partly as a consequence of the absence of court and theatrical musical entertainments during the Civil War. Most of
the English repertory, from continuo songs and instrumental pieces to consort music, circulated in manuscript, as it had in the
previous century, and many wealthy families owned a chest of viols, normally two trebles, two tenors and two basses.
Contrapuntal genres such as fantasias and In Nomine pieces by Jenkins, Simpson, Locke, Purcell and others were essayed
(some as late as the 1660s and 70s), as were works using dance forms, divisions on ground basses and fantasia-suites;
eventually these genres were replaced by more modern ones such as solo or trio sonatas, as the violin began gradually to be
taken up by amateur players and the availability of printed chamber music (including works from abroad) increased.
Ensemble music-making continued to thrive at European courts. Some rulers, such as Philip IV of Spain and the Elector of
Bavaria, Maximilian II Emanuel, were enthusiastic amateur musicians (both were keen viol players) and participated in private
chamber music; moreover, with music increasingly becoming a symbol of the ruler’s political status and power, many also
employed a group of chamber players to perform in small-scale, private court concerts and to play privately with members of
the ruler’s family. Musicians were sometimes appointed specifically to compose and oversee the performance of chamber
music: thus Sigismondo d’India became maestro di musica della camera at the court of Carlo Emanuele I in Turin (1611), and
Henry Lawes ‘Composer in ye Private Musick for Lutes & Voices’ in London (1660). At the opulent court of Louis XIV at
Versailles, the group designated ‘La Musique de la Chambre’ played for fêtes,tragédies en musique, ballets and other ‘public’
events; private chamber music took place in the king’s private apartments before a small audience of family members and
distinguished guests, and was performed by a select group of musicians. Couperin wrote his Concerts royauxfor such
occasions. At many courts, small-scale vocal and instrumental music was also supplied for special banquets: at Dresden
(where Schütz worked) Tafelmusikwas one of the principal responsibilities of court musicians.
Outside the courts, private music-making was still practised only in wealthy homes – instruments such as lutes and
harpsichords were expensive – though by 1700 it was becoming a socially desirable leisure pursuit in upper middle-class
circles. Men typically played bowed string instruments, while women played lutes, guitars or keyboard, or sang. Publishers and
instrument sellers in Paris, Amsterdam and London flourished, exporting their wares across Europe and often showing a keen
awareness of the amateur market: publications such as Telemann’s Kleine Cammer-music (1716) and Musique de table(1733)
emphasized the domestic function of the product, and some publishers catered specifically for amateurs of limited musical
abilities. Domestic music was increasingly seen as a status symbol and an integral part of home life; in Bologna, where there
was no court, wealthy households are said to have employed musicians as a means of vying for social prestige.
Other sources of patronage for chamber music included the Italian accademie: cantatas and instrumental music, often specially
composed, were included in the annual prizegiving ceremony of the Accademia del Disegno di S Luca in Rome, for example,
and some composers mention the academies in the dedications to their published chamber music. Cantatas, sonatas and
other small-scale genres also played an important role in the weekly conversazioni held in the palaces of Cardinals Ottoboni
and Pamphili and of Prince Ruspoli in Rome; Antonio Caldara, who served Prince Ruspoli from 1709 to 1716, wrote dozens of
chamber duets and solo cantatas for this purpose, as did Handel. In German and Dutch towns collegia musica, small groups of
musicians who gathered regularly to play music, were common. A collegium musicum under Sweelinck’s direction was
established in Amsterdam in the early 17th century for a small group of well-to-do amateur musicians; in Leipzig collegia were
popular with students eager to read through ensemble music under the guidance of a professional musician. Telemann directed
one such collegium, 1702–4, and was succeeded by Bach, who presided over meetings in Zimmermann’s coffee house. Bach
may well have written some instrumental works, for instance the flute sonata 1030 and the second volume of Das
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wohltemperirte Clavier, as well as secular cantatas, notably the ‘Coffee Cantata’ 211, for this collegium.
See also ACADEMY;COLLEGIUM MUSICUM ; andTAFELMUSIK (I).
(ii) 1740–1800.
By the 1740s many composers, such as J.M. Leclair and G.B. Sammartini, were writing chamber music in the simple, elegant
and forward-looking idiom (characterized as galant) that gave graceful melody a dominant role. During the second half of the
18th century the continuo gradually disappeared from instrumental chamber music; the driving Baroque bass line went with it,
to be replaced by the distinctive Classical style, typified by its translucent textures, slower harmonic change and clear structural
paragraphs. At the same time, the traditional ties of composers to court patrons were loosening and commercial opportunities
widening; in Paris and London in particular the prosperous and socially selfconscious middle classes were increasing in
number and becoming important patrons of chamber music, purchasing instruments (especially pianos), printed music and,
increasingly as the period progressed and commercial concert life developed, concert subscriptions and tickets. Most of
Haydn’s large chamber music output (string quartets, sonatas, songs, piano trios), for example, was written for publication and
performance outside his patron Prince Nicolaus’s court at Eszterháza; his baryton trios, unpublished in his lifetime, stand apart
as being designed for the prince’s private consumption.
The biggest centres of music publishing in the late 18th century were London, Paris and (to a lesser extent) Vienna. In these
cities a large selection of chamber music was published; according to one estimate (Mongrédien, 1986) several thousand
quartets by about 200 composers were published in Paris between 1770 and 1800, suggesting a market of considerable size.
Some publishers cultivated contacts in foreign cities, not only to sell their own goods abroad but also to import music from
foreign firms. Nevertheless, although the market for domestic music in urban centres was clearly expanding, it was – like
markets for other luxury goods (such as fashionable clothes and jewellery) – still a limited one, beyond the pocket of most: in
London, a set of six sonatas typically cost 10s 6d (Sadie, 1990), far more than a clerk or tradesman could then afford.
The late 18th century saw the introduction of a host of chamber genres, several of which made use of the new piano. Sonatas
for keyboard with an optional violin or flute line that could be dispensed with easily were known as accompanied sonatas. Many
publishers offered an explicit choice of keyboard instrument, as in Robert Bremner’s publication of Eichner’s Three Sonatas for
the Harpsichord or Forte Piano with Accompanyments for a Violin and Bass ad libitum (1771). Those that additionally included
parts for cello were effectively precursors of the piano trio. The optional parts normally did little more than sustain harmonies
and follow or double melody or bass lines, and were both printed and sold separately. Especially suited to amateurs of limited
accomplishments, accompanied sonatas were standard items in most publishers’ catalogues, particularly in Paris and London.
Other keyboard genres tailored to the amateur market included variations, rondos and simple solo sonatas (by such composers
as Dussek and Shield) which typically made specific reference to popular tunes. Accompanied solo songs, including
arrangements of operatic arias and theatrical songs, lieder and canzonets, and keyboard duets for four hands on one
instrument (as composed by J.C. Bach, Dussek and others) were also part of the domestic repertory. Duets for two melody
instruments, typically two flutes, two violins or violin and cello, were particularly popular among amateurs; although much of the
repertory was technically simple and musically lightweight, it attracted such composers as Pleyel, Mozart and Boccherini.
The quintessential genre of late 18th-century chamber music was the string quartet, particularly as it developed in Vienna in the
hands of Haydn and Mozart from 1770. Intended for skilled players and connoisseur listeners, the Viennese string quartet was
characterized by its balanced part-writing, imaginative textures, conversational idiom and tightly wrought musical argument.
Works such as Haydn’s op.20 quartets, with their contrapuntal working, typically demanded performance in an intimate
environment, before a few serious-minded and attentive listeners. Michael Kelly, in his Reminiscences (1826), described a
small social gathering in Vienna (1784) at which quartets were played by Haydn, Dittersdorf (violins), Mozart (viola) and Vanhal
(cello), with Paisiello among the listeners, and remarked that a ‘greater treat, or a more remarkable one, cannot be imagined’.
Similar approaches to composition obtained in other chamber works (e.g. Mozart’s string quintets with two violas); indeed, by
the 1780s some composers were also moving towards a more democratic role for the melody instrument(s) in accompanied
sonatas and piano trios: Mozart’s Sonata per il cembalo e violino 454 (1784) is a notable example. In some works, composers
tended to highlight the technical talents of particular performers for whom the works were intended, at times producing highly
concertante textures: for instance, Haydn’s six quartets opp.54 and 55 dedicated to the violinist Johann Tost, and Mozart’s
three ‘Prussian’ quartets 575, 589 and 590, thought to have been written with Friedrich Wilhelm II, King of Prussia and a
skilled amateur cellist, in mind (Friedrich Wilhelm was also the recipient of string quartets and quintets sent to him from Spain
by Boccherini).
In Paris, string quartets in which the four instruments played equal roles were routinely described by publishers as quatuors
concertants(sometimes quatuors dialogués or quatuors concertants et dialogués); according to Framery (Encyclopédie
méthodique, 1791) this distinguished them from quartets ‘where there is only one principal part while the others merely
accompany’. Quatuors concertants, written by such composers as Vachon, Bréval and Blasius, particularly appealed to the
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amateur market for, unlike the quartets of Haydn and Mozart, they were relatively easy to play; the musical texture may have
aped the French art of social conversation (Hanning, 1989), emphasizing thematic exchange and allowing each instrument a
solo moment in turn while minimizing (though by no means suppressing) the contribution of the other parts. Some quatuors
concertants were written for woodwind ensembles, others for combinations of strings and wind. Several quartets published in
London at the same period, such as Rauzzini’s six quartets op.6 (c1778) and J.C. Bach’s op.8 (1772), blended a keyboard or
wind instrument with strings, while some string quartets by English composers (e.g. Joseph Gibbs’s quartets, 1778) and even a
London edition of Haydn’s op.33 quartets (?1799) were issued with an ad libitum figured bass part; since solo and trio sonatas
continued to flourish in England well into the late 18th century, it seems likely that keyboard players were considered an
essential, perhaps stabilizing, presence in English amateur ensembles. Comfortably playable arrangements of concert works
and operas (often for keyboard and accompanying instrument) were also part of the domestic repertory; composers active in
France, such as Cambini, arranged popular and theatrical tunes for quartet, specially designating them quatuors d’airs variés
or quatuors d’airs connus.
Across Europe and in the Russian Empire and the New World, domestic music-making, both
within the family group and among friends and visitors, thus became an important social activity
in aristocratic and respectable middle-class circles. The ability to play a keyboard instrument and
to sing were deemed important social accomplishments for women and may even have acted as
catalysts to courtship and marriage. Strong associations between gender and instruments in the
domestic context had begun to develop, and although boundaries were sometimes broken it was
considered appropriate by the late 18th century for females to play only keyboards, plucked
Concert in the home of the string instruments (harp, guitar) and to sing, and for males to play the violin, cello or flute (fig.2).
Comtesse de Saint-Brisson,
1773:… Related to the mainstream traditions of domestic music-making in the late 18th century was the
English predilection for glees and catches (unaccompanied partsongs for male voices), which were traditionally performed by
amateurs in the home, after dinner. Not only did English composers write and publish them in large quantities, but the practice
was also institutionalized by a number of London societies, including the Noblemen and Gentlemen’s Catch Club (from 1761)
and the Glee Club (1783–1857).
Chamber music continued to be performed by professional musicians at courts (e.g. Mannheim and Berlin) in what were
effectively private concerts given to an assembly of courtiers, noblemen and visiting dignitaries. In Bohemian lands the liking for
wind instruments produced a substantial repertory of Harmoniemusik, written for small ensembles of pairs of wind instruments
and including such works as Haydn’s divertimentos of 1759–61 (for Court Morzin’s Harmonie at Lukaveč); ensembles were
frequently employed to play at aristocratic houses, often during dinners and at parties.
The development of commercial concert life in the late 18th century, particularly in London, provided what was to become an
additional forum for the performance of chamber music – a forum that increased the number of potential listeners and provided
them with the opportunity to hear chamber music beyond their own technical capabilities performed by professional musicians.
In London, from the 1770s, items of chamber music, particularly quartets and quintets, appeared regularly in mixed concerts
alongside symphonies, overtures, concertos and songs. Much of the repertory, in particular several of Pleyel’s quartets and
quintets, exploited concertante textures and made heavy demands on virtuosity; Haydn’s opp.71 and 74, written for Salomon’s
concerts of 1794, are a tour de force of brilliant quartet writing. In Vienna and Paris, chamber music was rarely included in
public concerts before 1800, but found a regular outlet in the private concerts that formed part of the vibrant, aristocratic salon
cultures in both cities. In Vienna some of Mozart’s and Beethoven’s works were heard at the residences of Baron van Swieten
and Prince Lichnowsky, while in Paris composers frequently wrote quatuors concertants for salon performances and dedicated
them to their host or hostess.
See also HARMONIEMUSIK.
4. From 1800 to World War I.
(i) Concerts and repertory.

During the 19th century commercial concerts devoted to chamber music became an established
part of the musical calendar in many cities, and for most amateur musicians listening to concert
performances of chamber music became just as important as – if not more important than –
participating in it privately. Notable early developments took place in Vienna (Ignaz
Schuppanzigh held subscription series of instrumental chamber concerts at Count Rasumovsky’s
palace from 1804–5), Berlin (Karl Möser’s quartet soiréesbegan in the 1813–14 season) and
String quartet, including Paris (Pierre Baillot’s quartet concerts were established in 1814) – all cities with lively musical
Vieuxtemps (left) and Piatti (right),
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at the… salon cultures. By the 1840s there were chamber music concerts in many European centres,
including Dresden, Pest and London. Important series founded in this period were the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde’s
Musikalische Abendunterhaltungen in Vienna (1818–29, 1831–40), the series run by the Tilmant brothers (1833–49), Alard and
Chevillard (1837–48) and the Dancla brothers (1838–1870) in Paris, and the Quartett Concerts (1836–59), Classical Chamber
Concerts (1836–9) and the Musical Union (1845–81) in London (fig.3). The core repertory of most concerts was instrumental
trios, quartets and quintets by the Viennese trinity (Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven), although there was a good deal of local
variation in the content and shape of programmes. Baillot’s concerts in Paris presented instrumental repertory only (typically
five ensemble works and one violin solo, played by Baillot with piano accompaniment), whereas the longer programmes of
many London concerts, which included piano and duo sonatas as well as works for larger instrumental ensembles, were
relieved by the interspersion of songs and duets between the instrumental items; the programmes of the Gesellschaft der
Musikfreunde concerts offered few large-scale instrumental chamber works, being chiefly made up of small-scale instrumental
and vocal pieces (including a number of Schubert’s lieder), usually with a string quartet to open proceedings and a work for
vocal ensemble (often one of Schubert’s vocal quartets) to end.
Although the growth of chamber music concerts was clearly bound up with the general expansion of concert life in urban
centres during the 19th century and with an increasing middle-class demand for music, quartet soiréesand other types of
chamber concert appear to have been a refined taste, appealing to minority groups of enthusiasts within cities. As the century
progressed, the chamber music concert repertory, like the orchestral one, took on an increasingly historical dimension, centred
on the Viennese classics and works that emulated them (such as Mendelssohn’s quartets and Hummel’s chamber music with
piano). Modern works in a Romantic idiom (by composers such as Schumann and Brahms) were added gradually. At the same
time a gulf was opening up in the minds of some critics between serious music – of which instrumental chamber music could
be seen as the epitome – and lightweight, popular pieces (e.g. fantasias or potpourris), often designated salon music
orTrivialmusik. (The fact that some concert-givers leavened their programmes with lighter works, presumably in an attempt to
broaden their audience appeal, may well have contributed to such critical censure.) In line with this trend, many chamber
concerts developed decidedly cerebral overtones: from the mid-1840s many London series (the Musical Union, the Quartett
Association, the Monday Popular Concerts) provided concert-goers with analytical programme notes to help them understand
the structure of the works performed and listen in a musically informed way; at about the same time miniature scores of the
core Viennese repertory were published by K.F. Heckel of Mannheim, and distributed through agents in Vienna, Leipzig,
London and Moscow. Familiarity with the complete Beethoven quartets, even the late works, grew, not only through the
activities of bespoke organizations such as the Beethoven Quartett Society (London, 1845–52) and the Société des Derniers
Quatuors de Beethoven (Paris, 1852–after 1870), but also within standard concert programmes. Intimacy and attentiveness
were stressed during concerts, and some concert-givers such as John Ella, who ran the Musical Union in London, placed the
performers in the centre of the room, with the audience encircling them, to encourage close listening and to draw the audience
into the music.
In several cities the salon tradition continued to thrive alongside public concerts, with many central European salons (e.g. in
Berlin and Paris) becoming increasingly dominated by the bourgeoisie. Some salons were given over to ‘serious’ chamber
music, but others were built around more lightweight fare. In mid-19th-century Berlin, intellectuals, artists, philosophers, writers
and businessmen gathered, often in the houses of Jewish families, for serious music and conversation. Joachim, Clara
Schumann and Jenny Lind were among the leading musicians who performed at these events; composers, including Robert
Schumann and Mendelssohn, presented their own music, sometimes using the occasion to try out new works.
Knowledge of the spread and nature of chamber concerts and repertories in the second half of the century is much patchier
than that of the first half, but the number of public concerts seems to have continued to increase, with repertories remaining
based on the emerging canon of Viennese classics, and the shapes of programmes subject to local tastes and traditions, both
in established centres of concert-giving and elsewhere. Among the several concert series founded during the period were the
Mason and Thomas Chamber Music Soirées (1855–68) in New York, the Société de Quatuors Armingaud et Jacquard
(1856–68) in Paris, the Kammermusikverein (1876–) and Czech Society for Chamber Music (1894–) in Prague, and the South
Place Sunday Popular Concerts (1887–) in London. In the 1860s and 70s chamber concerts were established in Italy and
Spain, countries whose musical life had hitherto been dominated by operatic traditions. The wave of interest in instrumental
music in post-unification Italy spawned a number of quartet societies, in Florence (1861), Milan (1864), Turin (1866), Rome
(1874) and elsewhere; in Madrid a quartet society for the performance of classical chamber music was founded in 1863. Some
concerts, for instance those of the Musical Union in London and the Quartett-Abend in Berlin, presented more modern-looking
packages of three or four contrasting instrumental works (the Quartett-Abend of 29 October 1856 opened with Haydn’s quartet
op.77 no.1, continued with Mendelssohn’s op.44 no.2 and concluded with Beethoven’s op.127), but such programming was not
yet common.
Schubert’s instrumental chamber music, much of which lay unpublished after his death, gradually worked its way into the
repertory during the second half of the century. This was due in part to the efforts of Joseph Hellmesberger, whose chamber
concerts in Vienna in the 1850s and 60s brought Schubert’s string quintet and some of his quartets (notably ‘Death and the
Maiden’ 810, the G major Quartet 887 and theQuartettsatz 703) to the concert platform. Among chamber works written in
the later part of the century were pieces by Dvořák and Smetana, with their strong national flavour, and the classically inspired
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output of Brahms. In France the Société Nationale de Musique (inaugurated in 1871), a forum for young composers, fostered
chamber music among other forms of composition; its legacy includes works by Saint-Saëns, Franck and Fauré. In Russia the
publisher M.P. Belyayev, who set up quartet evenings in St Petersburg in 1891, encouraged Rimsky-Korsakov, Borodin and
their circle (the composite quartets Les vendredis and Quatuor B-La-F, written for his musical evenings, are a notable
monument to his patronage). By the first decade of the 20th century several of these new works (including Dvořák’s String
Quartet op.96, his Piano Quintet op.81 and ‘Dumky’ Piano Trio op.90, Smetana’s Quartet no.1 ‘From my life’, Fauré’s Piano
Quartet no.1, Tchaikovsky’s Quartet no.1, Borodin’s Quartet no.2 and much of Brahms’s chamber music) had been assimilated
into the central repertory.
Most concert series were given by regular groups of locally based players, but some promoters were keen to engage artists
with drawing power on their European tours: thus many top-class artists, especially pianists such as Clara Schumann, Alfred
Jaëll and Hans von Bülow, appeared in London at the Musical Union and at Chappell’s Popular Concerts. Towards the end of
the 19th century a small number of permanent, touring string quartets began to form, signalling the beginnings of a break with
past practices and anticipating what was to become a widespread trend 50 years later. The precedent, with the attendant
benefits of opportunities for intensive rehearsal and a resultant unity of ensemble and tone, had been set much earlier by the
Müller brothers’ quartet, active 1831–55, and followed by a few others (usually family groups). Famous ensembles include: the
Joachim Quartet (1869–1907), which gave highly acclaimed performances of the late Beethoven quartets; the Czech Quartet
(1892–1933), with Josef Suk (i) as second violin; the Brodsky Quartet (fl Leipzig, c1883–91, and Manchester, 1895–1921); and
the Kneisel Quartet (1885–1917), the first permanent touring quartet in the USA. A number of all-female chamber groups
emerged in Britain around the turn of the century, due largely to the fact that although the number of women capable of playing
string instruments to an advanced level was increasing, professional orchestral openings for them were rare; one particularly
successful quartet was led by Norah Clench (a pupil of Joachim) and gave concerts across Europe from about 1906 to 1913.
Concerts focussing on one soloist (typically a pianist, or a singer and accompanist) became established towards the end of the
19th century, but programmes were generally quite different from what became the standard recital format in the 20th century.
In London in the pre-World War I decade, programmes embraced diverse repertory (e.g. trivial piano pieces sat alongside
‘serious’ sonatas), and the soloist was usually ‘assisted’ by others.
Most 19th-century chamber music heard in concerts was written with professional players, sometimes particular
instrumentalists, in mind. Indeed, the quasi-orchestral sonorities and rhetorical gestures of much chamber music, from
Beethoven’s op.59 quartets and ‘Kreutzer’ violin sonata onwards, suggest that composers were increasingly addressing the
public arena of the concert room, rather than the home environment. A large amount of the piano chamber repertory of the
latter part of the century, such as the piano quartets and quintets of Schumann, Brahms, Dvořák and Fauré, boasts a
particularly brilliant, at times concerto-like, keyboard part. Duo sonatas (especially the violin sonatas of Brahms, Franck and
Fauré) do likewise, although, as with piano quartets and quintets, musical interest is shared between the piano and the other
instrument(s). The string quartet repertory similarly makes heavy demands of its players, not only in terms of individual
technique (e.g. Beethoven’s E Quartet op.74; Smetana’s Quartet no.1), but also in terms of ensemble playing (e.g.
Beethoven’s late quartets, Brahms’s quartets). In the early part of the century, the quatuor brillant, an extreme example of
virtuosity within chamber music, enjoyed a short-lived popularity. Characterized by a concerto-like first violin part and
rudimentary accompaniments in the lower lines, it flourished in France and Germany (particularly in the hands of Rode,
Kreutzer and Spohr) and proved well suited to performance by travelling violin virtuosos.
The musical language of Romanticism, with its dramatic contrasts of timbre and vivid colouring, was in many respects at odds
with the intimate string quartet medium, and 19th-century composers’ likings for rich resonances and chromatic colourings may
have made larger string ensembles, such as quintets, sextets and even octets, or ensembles with piano and/or woodwind,
intrinsically more comfortable forces to work with. Moreover, the legacy of Beethoven, the growing mystique surrounding his
late quartets, and the domination of his works at the apex of the chamber music canon throughout the century may have
contributed to caution on the part of late 19th-century composers in approaching the quartet genre: few composers produced
more than a handful of published quartets, and Brahms’s destruction of some 20 works before his op.51 is well known.
(ii) Domestic music-making.

Domestic music-making continued to flourish in the 19th century, although it increasingly developed and defined its own
repertory, distinct from that of the concert hall. The piano, especially later in the century, became the pre-eminent domestic
instrument, emblem of female gentility and social respectability, and affordable by a broad band of the middle classes in
northern and western Europe and North America. Easy solo piano pieces, piano duets (e.g. waltzes, quadrilles and marches)
and piano-accompanied songs, intended specifically for the home or salon and mostly lightweight in conception, were the
mainstay of 19th-century music publishers’ catalogues. Most composers produced domestic music of this description, though in
the hands of Schubert, Schumann, Mendelssohn and Brahms the domestic piano and vocal genres reached notable artistic
heights. Singing, like piano playing, remained an important social accomplishment for women, but men were not wholly
excluded: they often sang songs and ballads and took part in family singing of hymns and sacred songs around the piano. In
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the early part of the century in Germany, Austria and Scandinavia, male-voice singing groups enjoyed considerable popularity.
Schubert’s male-voice quartets were frequently performed alongside his lieder and piano music (waltzes, duets etc.) at the
informal evenings of music, eating, dancing and games (known as Schubertiads) held in the homes of his Viennese
acquaintances.
Alongside piano duets, works for two melody instruments (usually violins or flutes) continued to flourish in the early 1800s,
being taken up by Beethoven, Kalliwoda, Spohr and others. With new instruments came new repertory. The concertina
(patented in 1829) was fashionable as a domestic instrument particularly in England and Germany until the early 1900s; the
family of instruments (treble, tenor and bass) spawned its own stock of pieces (solo fantasias on operatic airs, character-
pieces) but could also be used to play string quartets. The harmonium (‘cottage organ’) also emerged as a domestic instrument
in the later 19th century, especially in the USA and central Europe. Much of its repertory consisted of arrangements, and some
publishers issued optional harmonium accompaniments to songs; the best-known bespoke chamber composition for the
instrument is Dvořák’sBagatelles for two violins, cello and harmonium.
Although there was an ostensible gulf between the domestic and concert repertories, the public and private spheres of musical
activity were in fact linked. Well-known pianists, for example, endorsed specific makes of piano, and the growth of
concert-going encouraged publishers to issue a large repertory of transcriptions and arrangements of pieces from the concert
hall. The practice, begun in the 18th century, of arranging large-scale concert or operatic works for small ensemble or solo
keyboard flourished in the early 19th century. Thus London publishers issued arrangements of Haydn’s symphonies for flute,
string quartet and keyboard, and excerpts from Mozart’s and Rossini’s operas for string quartet or for keyboard and
accompanying instrument; in France instrumental arrangements of operatic excerpts for domestic performance were
particularly popular. By the mid-19th century the piano duet (usually for four hands on one piano) was becoming the standard
medium for arrangements of concert works: the symphonies and chamber music of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven were thus
transported from the concert hall into the home. The player-piano, which began to come into vogue as a luxury instrument
(particularly favoured by men) in America and, to some extent, Europe in the first decade of the 20th century, was a further
means by which transcriptions of concert music could be consumed, and one that enabled non-playing music-lovers to enjoy
concert works, including chamber music, in the home.
In domestic circles the performance of string quartets was mainly the province of skilled amateurs, and of professional
musicians playing for recreation. Modern pieces, such as Brahms’s and Dvořák’s quartets, with their increasing technical
demands, were probably usually attempted only by professionals; the same was true of the piano chamber repertory (for
instance Brahms’s piano trios and duo sonatas). Even the less demanding Viennese works may have been beyond the
technical capabilities of most amateur players, though groups may have elected to play fast movements below tempo, to
perform simple movements (slow movements and minuets) only, or to battle through regardless. Some composers and
publishers catered explicitly for amateur needs: in the early 19th century Georges Onslow, an experienced amateur cellist,
wrote numerous string quintets which he tried out with friends before they were published with alternative scorings (two violas
or two cellos, or with double bass); nearly a century later piano-rolls of the keyboard parts of piano chamber works by Brahms,
Tchaikovsky and others were being manufactured and sold, offering above-average amateur string players the opportunity of
trying repertory that was beyond the technical capabilities of most amateur pianists.
See also CONCERT (II)and RECITAL.
5. After World War I.

Chamber music after World War I was characterized by a number of changes in its creation and consumption, themselves
bound up with shifting aesthetic, social and economic factors.
(i) Composition.
Reactions against the large forces and emotional excesses of late Romanticism led in part to a renewed interest in chamber
music composition, beginning in the early 20th century. Not only did chamber music offer composers the discipline of writing for
leaner forces, but also, because it required few players, rehearsals and public performances were more viable, both practically
and economically. The rejection of 19th-century traditions, and the quest for individuality, contributed to increasingly imaginative
combinations of instruments and to the appearance of the voice (with or without text) in instrumental pieces of chamber
dimensions. Works such as Webern’s Quartet op.22 (tenor saxophone, piano, clarinet and violin), Messiaen’s Quatuor pour la
fin du temps (piano, violin, clarinet and cello), Boulez’sLe marteau sans maître (contralto voice, alto flute, guitar, vibraphone,
xylorimba, percussion and viola) and Maxwell Davies’s Ave maris stella (flute, clarinet, marimba, piano, viola, cello) broadened
the instrumental spectrum, while pieces requiring electronic amplification (e.g. Crumb’sBlack Angels for electric string quartet),
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combining acoustic instruments or voices with tape (e.g. Berio’s Différencesfor flute, clarinet, harp, violin, cello and tape or
Babbitt’s Philomelfor soprano voice and tape) or with live electronics (e.g. Stockhausen’sMikrophonie I for tam-tam, two
microphones, two filters and potentiometers, or his Solo for one melody instrument and manipulated tape feedback), led
chamber music in new directions. In addition, some composers wrote works for small orchestra with one player per part – for
example Berg’s Kammerkonzert for piano, violin and 13 wind instruments (Schoenberg’s Kammersymphonie op.9 for 15
instruments of 1906 set the precedent) – creating the related genres of chamber symphony and chamber concerto (see
CHAMBER ORCHESTRAand CHAMBER SYMPHONY).
The stylistic pluralism of 20th-century music had its effect on chamber works, through such techniques as serialism
(Schoenberg’s String Quartet no.4), neo-classicism (Stravinsky’s Octet), aleatoricism (Cowell’sMosaic Quartet) and minimalism
(Nyman’s String Quartet no.2). Traditional chamber genres (sonatas, piano trios etc.) survived to varying extents and in new
conceptual guises, with only the string quartet enjoying something of a rejuvenation in the hands of Bartók (whose quartets
rival those from Beethoven’s late period in intellectual rigour, emotional intensity and frequency of performance), Shostakovich,
Janáček, Britten, Tippett, Ligeti and Carter. Such works clearly suggest that the quartet has maintained its magnetism as a
vehicle for the concentrated expression of a composer’s innermost thoughts. Some composers have rejected generic labels
while continuing to write for traditional forces (e.g. Terry Riley’s Salome Dances for Peace, for string quartet). New directions in
the post-World War II period include a tendency towards theatricality (e.g. Roger Reynolds’sThe Emperor of Ice Cream, which
requires performers to change their positions on stage during the performance) and techniques that sit uneasily with the
inwardness and communion associated with chamber music (e.g. Lutosławski’s aleatory String Quartet, which requires the
players to avoid coordinating with each other), thus challenging the aesthetics of the genre (Bujic, 1982).
A number of initiatives emanating from institutions and individuals have stimulated and supported 20th-century chamber music
composition. In 1922 the Internationale Kammermusikaufführung Salzburg gave birth to the International Society for
Contemporary Music, an important supporter of chamber music during the inter-war years. An annual festival of contemporary
chamber music was established in Donaueschingen in 1921, later moving to Baden-Baden (1926) and eventually widening its
scope. In the USA the benefactorELIZABETH SPRAGUE COOLIDGE instituted a chamber music festival in Pittsfield, Massachusetts
(1918–24), established a foundation (1925) to fund concerts at the Library of Congress in Washington, and commissioned a
host of new chamber works from Bartók, Webern, Casella, Bloch, Martinů and others. In England the businessmanW.W.
COBBETT carried out similar acts of philanthropy, commissioning new works from composers and financing several awards,
including composition prizes at the RCM in the 1920s, and the competition (established 1905) for ‘phantasy’ chamber works
(multi-section, one-movement pieces that took their inspiration from the Elizabethan viol fantasia; winners included Bridge and
Howells). The years after World War II saw further direct support for the composition and performance of contemporary
chamber music, including the introduction of residences for chamber ensembles in universities (especially in the USA and UK),
the prevalence of chamber media in international composition competitions and the establishment of commissioning
programmes by such organizations as Chamber Music America (1983). Other, more general measures, for instance the
establishment of festivals and societies for the promotion of new music, and public broadcasting policies and record labels
catering for minority tastes, have contributed to a continuing interest in new works of chamber proportions. However, in spite of
these efforts, and with some notable exceptions (for instance the quartets of Bartók, Shostakovich, Janáček, Ravel, Barber and
Tippett), most 20th-century chamber music has remained on the periphery of the mainstream concert repertory, which has
become anchored around a relatively small number of canonic works, largely from the past.
Most 20th-century chamber music has been written for the increasing number of highly skilled instrumentalists on the
professional circuit and intended for use in the concert hall (and through the new format of gramophone recordings). Works
such as Bartók’s and Carter’s quartets are well beyond the capabilities of most amateurs, requiring a group of players with
virtuoso instrumental techniques who are able to cope with the difficulties of ensemble and intonation inherent in the writing.
(ii) Ensembles, sound recording and concerts.

The formation of permanent ensembles of professional players, already in evidence towards the end of the 19th century,
increased dramatically in the 20th, particularly after World War II when technical standards of performance were raised to
unprecedented levels. Among the many groups that established significant international reputations were the Léner, Kolisch,
Busch, Pro Arte, Budapest, Juilliard, Amadeus, Cleveland, Tokyo, Lindsay and Alban Berg quartets, and the Beaux Arts and
Borodin trios; several ensembles, for instance the Boston Symphony Chamber Players and the Czech Philharmonic Wind
Quintet, were formed from the ranks of professional orchestras. The emergence in the 1950s and 60s of the ‘early music’
movement, which brought large quantities of pre-1750 chamber music to the fore, gave rise to ensembles devoted to the
performance of music on period instruments and in historically informed styles; by the late 20th century there were several
groups specializing both in Renaissance and Baroque chamber music (e.g. Fretwork, Trio Sonnerie, Purcell Quartet) and in the
Classical and early Romantic repertories (Salomon Quartet, Quatuor Mosaïques, London Fortepiano Trio). In addition, a
division has emerged between ensembles that play mainly the core concert repertory of works from Haydn to Tippett on
modern instruments (such as the Lindsay and Talich quartets, and the Nash Ensemble) and those that specialize in the
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performance of new music (such as the Arditti and Kronos quartets and the Ensemble InterContemporain).
From the 1920s, broadcasts and sound recordings brought far-reaching changes to chamber music consumption, opening up
the repertory to those who had hitherto been unable – for whatever demographic, social and/or economic reasons – to attend
chamber concerts, and increasing the means by which chamber music enthusiasts were able to gain greater familiarity with the
repertory through hearings in their own homes. Chamber music was, by its very nature, apt for domestic consumption in this
way (listening to Schubert’s String Quintet in the home is intrinsically more natural than listening to Schubert’s Ninth
Symphony), and even before the start of electrical recording in 1927 chamber music was able to be reproduced on recordings
more successfully than, for example, orchestral works. By the mid-1930s much of the standard concert repertory (i.e. a large
number of string quartets, some string quintets, violin sonatas and works for miscellaneous combinations, and a handful of
piano trios, by composers from Haydn to Debussy) had been recorded by such artists as the Busch, Flonzaley, London and
Léner quartets, Albert Sammons, Lionel Tertis and William Murdoch. The issuing of multiple versions on records, and repeated
broadcasts of ‘classic’ works, served to reinforce the central canon of chamber music; at the same time certain recordings (e.g.
the Casals-Thibaud-Cortot trio’s performance of Schubert’s B Piano Trio 898 and the Busch Quartet’s performance of
Beethoven’s ‘Rasumovsky’ and late string quartets) began to gain their own canonic status. Musically informed, close listening
and a developing interest in comparing different recordings of the same work were encouraged by the publication of listening
guides to chamber music. Chamber music still bore connotations of an ‘élitist’ taste, but gramophone listeners were constantly
encouraged to develop an appreciation of it. Recordings of modern music formed a minor slice of the repertory, and were
mainly issued by particular interest groups, for example the National Gramophone Society in the UK, which specialized in
works by contemporary composers. In the late 1920s the BBC’s broadcast repertory of chamber music, though built around the
accepted ‘classics’, included a significant amount (c25%; Jefferies, 1929–30) of modern works, by Schoenberg, Berg, Webern,
Hindemith, Bartók, Kodály, Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Koechlin, Walton and others, played by international artists.
Alongside the new interest in recordings and broadcasting, chamber music concerts and societies continued in major cities in
Europe and North America after the disruptions of World War I, with performances by professional ensembles in small concert
halls, libraries, museums, art galleries and churches. Occasional concerts and/or regular series also became a feature of
musical life in many small towns, often at the instigation of local music clubs. Instrumental concert programmes began to
crystallize into formats of three or four contrasting works by different composers (and often including one modern work) during
the 1920s and 30s, as the diversity of programming characteristic of the 19th century began to be replaced by a new
homogeneity. Song recital programmes developed similar coherence. A small number of concerts or series celebrated one
composer’s output (most typically Beethoven’s quartets), or were devoted wholly to contemporary music. Recitals for violin
(with piano accompaniment), for which a large sonata repertory exists, also emerged, and as the century progressed the solo
recital for melody instrument (not only the violin, but also several other instruments, including cello, viola and clarinet) and
piano became a prevalent concert type.
World War II brought much concert activity to a temporary halt (the lunchtime recitals at the National Gallery, London, were one
prominent exception), but the second half of the century saw a resumption and expansion of concert life, as the advent of easy
international travel and communications opened up new possibilities for professional artists. A number of developments
followed, among them the establishment of regular chamber concerts in cities in the southern hemisphere. Musica Viva
Australia (1945–), an organization devoted to the promotion of chamber music tours by distinguished local and foreign artists,
brought chamber music to several Australian cities; the New Zealand Federation of Chamber Music Societies (1945–)
functioned in a similar fashion. Other initiatives included the organization of concerts on university campuses and the
foundation of specialist festivals (e.g. the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, 1973–) and competitions (e.g. the Banff
International String Quartet Competition, 1983–), the winning of which could be central to the successful launch of a young
ensemble on an international career.
The growth of the early music movement in the 1950s and 60s had a significant impact on both the concert repertory and the
recorded and broadcast media. In the inter-war years only a relatively small amount of chamber music from the pre-Classical
eras – typically sonatas by Bach, Handel and Purcell, arrangements for violin and piano of Baroque keyboard pieces, and
pieces played on modern instruments (e.g. Bach’s viola da gamba sonatas on the cello and piano, or Purcell’s viol fantasias
played by a string quintet) – had been recorded or regularly played in concerts. From the 1950s the amount of Baroque and
Renaissance music in the repertory increased steadily, as performers began to restore familiar pieces to their ‘rightful’
instruments and to play the unknown works that were being exhumed and edited by musicologists. In particular the recorded
repertory (now on LP) mushroomed, as large amounts of chamber works by Bach, Corelli, Couperin, Handel, Locke, Rameau,
Telemann, Vivaldi and others entered the catalogues. At the same time, recording companies sought to embrace the complete
works of many composers in the central canon, in particular Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert.
By the 1990s an unprecedentedly wide range of chamber music had become commercially available on CDs, reflecting the
diversity of contemporary tastes and modern desires for collecting and completeness while also demonstrating the ability of the
record companies to market and sell effectively ‘niche’ works of minority interest. The purchaser now has a large choice of
repertory (from madrigals, viol fantasias and Baroque sonatas to Classical quartets, 19th-century drawing-room miniatures and
works by contemporary composers), performers and performance styles; minor works of well-known composers sit beside a
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host of pieces by numerous lesser-known ones. The mainstream concert repertory is represented by both modern artists and
remastered classic recordings of the past. The gap between popular, non-Western and classical modern repertories has been
imaginatively bridged by a few chamber groups – most notably the Kronos Quartet – who have issued thematic ‘crossover’
albums which juxtapose different compositional idioms while presenting works that share a particular extra-musical connection
(e.g. Kronos Quartet’sBlack Angels, which brings together a variety of works on a theme of war and persecution). The
proliferation of chamber music on record and radio has meant that much of the repertory has become available in the
environment of privacy for which it was originally intended, even though the mass use of personal stereos and in-car sound
systems means that the physical surroundings for musical consumption are no longer restricted to the home. While the
recorded repertory has expanded hugely, most mainstream concert programmes remain based around the central canon
(which sound recordings played a vital role in creating earlier in the century), with unusual repertory, when included,
surrounded by familiar works.
See also CONCERT (II);EARLY MUSIC;RADIO; RECITAL; and RECORDED SOUND, §1.
(iii) Domestic music-making.

Piano playing and singing flourished in many working- and middle-class homes in the early decades of the 20th century, but
were rivalled and eventually widely replaced by listening to radio and sound recordings as the predominant mode of domestic
musical entertainment. In spite of this overall shift, a small and musically sophisticated section of society – most notably music
students, amateurs (many of them trained to an unprecedentedly high level) and some professional musicians playing together
for pleasure – has continued to play chamber music in private. Rigid associations between instruments and gender have been
largely eroded. In Germany, ensemble playing has been particularly well sustained by the Hausmusik tradition: instrument-
playing members of the professional classes often form quartets for recreational music-making. Less able amateur players
have, of necessity, confined themselves to technically easier works, such as Baroque trio sonatas, the simpler Viennese
quartets and Romantic piano pieces, with difficult 19th-century works and much 20th-century chamber music remaining, for the
most part, beyond their performance horizons.
Interest in ensemble playing in the home has been catered for and supported by the publication of a number of books and
articles on how to perform chamber music, and of repertory guides and bespoke periodicals; by the establishment of amateur
associations, such as the Amateur Chamber Music Players, an American organization established in 1947 by Leonard Strauss
and Helen Rice as a network for those who play chamber music for pleasure (in 1997 its membership stood at more than
4000); and by the increase since World War II in the number of courses, summer schools and festivals at which amateur
chamber musicians can receive professional coaching. Although ensemble playing has long enjoyed a prominent role in
conservatory education, its importance as a means of developing musicianship in young players has been increasingly
recognized through the publication of easy music for ensembles and the establishment of specialized youth chamber-music
organizations for players of more advanced abilities.
Bibliography
Repertory lists, catalogues

W. Altmann: Kammermusik-Literatur: Verzeichnis von seit 1841 erschienenen Kammermusikwerken (Leipzig, 1910, 6/1945; Eng. trans.,
Leipzig and New York, 1923)
S.M. Helm: Catalog of Chamber Music for Wind Instruments (Ann Arbor, 1952, 2/1969)
J.F. Richter: Kammermusik-Katalog: Verzeichnis der von 1944 bis 1958 veröffentlichten Werke für Kammermusik und für Klavier vier- und
sechshändig sowie für zwei und mehr Klaviere (Leipzig, 1960) [continuation of Altmann]
R. Houser: Catalogue of Chamber Music for Woodwind Instruments (Bloomington, IN, 1962)
F.A. Stein: Verzeichnis der Kammermusikwerke von 1650 bis zur Gegenwart (Berne, 1962)
M. Hinson: The Piano in Chamber Ensemble: an Annotated Guide (Bloomington, IN, 1978)
V. Rangel-Ribeiro and R. Markel: Chamber Music: an International Guide to Works and their Instrumentation (New York, 1993)
B. Secrist-Schmedes: Wind Chamber Music: Winds with Piano and Woodwind Quintets: an Annotated Guide (Lanham, MD, 1996)
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Performance and composition manuals

T.F. Dunhill: Chamber Music: a Treatise for Students (London, 1913)
G. Stratton and A. Frank: The Playing of Chamber Music (Oxford, 1935)
B. Aulich and E. Heimeran: Das stillvergnügte Streichquartett (Munich, 1936; Eng. trans., 1938) [incl. quintets and piano chamber music]
A. Loft: Ensemble! a Rehearsal Guide to Thirty Great Works of Chamber Music (Portland, OR, 1992)
Reference sources
W.W. Cobbett, ed.: Cobbett’s Cyclopedic Survey of Chamber Music (London,1929–30, rev. 2/1963 by C. Mason)
A. Coeuroy and C. Rostand: Les chefs-d’oeuvre de la musique de chambre (Paris, 1952)
M. Berger: Guide to Chamber Music (London, 1985)
J.H. Baron: Chamber Music: a Research and Information Guide (New York and London, 1987) [annotated bibliography of literature]
A. Werner-Jensen and L. Finscher: Reclams Kammermusikführer (Stuttgart, 1990)
General literature
AG (L. Burkhat, with G. Ross); Grove6 (M. Tilmouth);MGG2 (N. Schwindt)
L. Nohl: Die geschichtliche Entwicklung der Kammermusik und ihre Bedeutung für den Musiker (Brunswick, 1885)
N. Kilburn: The Story of Chamber Music (London, 1904; 2/1932 with G.E.H. Abraham as Chamber Music and its Masters in the Past and
in the Present)
H. Mersmann: Die Kammermusik (Leipzig, 1930–33)
D.F. Tovey: Essays in Musical Analysis: Chamber Music (London, 1944)
A.H. King: Chamber Music (London, 1948)
H. Ulrich: Chamber Music: the Growth and Practice of an Intimate Art (New York, 1948, 2/1966)
A. Robertson, ed.: Chamber Music (London, 1957)
T.W. Adorno: ‘Kammermusik’, Einleitung in die Musiksoziologie: zwölf theoretische Vorlesungen (Frankfurt, 1962; Eng. trans., 1976)
D.N. Ferguson: Image and Structure in Chamber Music (Minneapolis, 1964)
L. Finscher: ‘Hausmusik und Kammermusik’, Musik und Verlag: Karl Vötterle zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. R. Baum and W. Rehm
(Kassel,1968), 67–76
W. Salmen: Haus- und Kammermusik: Privates Musizieren im gesellschaftlichen Wandel zwischen 1600 und 1900, Musikgeschichte in
Bildern, iv/3 (Leipzig,1969)
Colloquium musica cameralis: Brno 1971
‘Kammermusik’, Handwörterbuch der musikalischen Terminologie, ed. H.-H. Eggebrecht (Wiesbaden, 1972–)
D. Arnold and P. Griffiths: ‘Chamber Music’, The New Oxford Companion to Music, ed. D. Arnold (Oxford, 1983)
J. Bowers and J. Tick, eds.: Women making Music: the Western Art Tradition, 1150–1950 (London, 1986)
W. Salmen: Das Konzert (Munich, 1988), 96–109, 158–70
J.H Baron: Intimate Music: a History of the Idea of Chamber Music (Stuyvesant, NY, 1998)
To 1600
13 de 16 29/09/2017 17:14
E.H. Meyer: Early English Chamber Music (London, 1946, 2/1982)
W.A. Edwards: ‘The Performance of Ensemble Music in Elizabethan England’,PRMA, xcvii (1970–71), 113–23
I. Fenlon, ed.: Man and Music: The Renaissance: from the 1470s to the End of the 16th Century (London, 1989)
A. Newcomb: ‘Secular Polyphony in the 16th Century’, Performance Practice: Music before 1600, ed. H.M. Brown and S. Sadie (London,
1989), 222–39
R. Strohm: The Rise of European Music, 1380–1500 (Cambridge, 1993), 300–02, 313–19
J. Milsom: ‘Sacred Songs in the Chamber’, English Choral Practice, 1400–1650, ed. J. Morehen (Cambridge, 1995), 161–79
R. Rastall: ‘Spatial Effects in English Instrumental Consort Music, c1560–1605’,EMc, xxv (1997), 268–88
17th and 18th centuries

E.H. Meyer: Die mehrstimmige Spielmusik des 17. Jahrhunderts in Nord- und Mitteleuropa (Kassel, 1934) [incl. repertory list]
R.H. Rowen: Early Chamber Music (New York, 1949)
R.P. Phelps: The History and Practice of Chamber Music in the United States from Earliest Times up to 1875 (diss., U. of Iowa, 1951)
R. Engländer: Die Dresdner Instrumentalmusik in der Zeit der Wiener Klassik (Uppsala and Wiesbaden, 1956)
S. Sadie: British Chamber Music, 1720–1790 (diss., U. of Cambridge,1958)
E. Schmitt: Die Kurpfälzische Kammermusik im 18. Jahrhunderts (diss., U. of Heidelberg, 1958)
M. Tilmouth: Chamber Music in England, 1675–1720 (diss., U. of Cambridge, 1959–60)
R. Fuhrmann: Mannheimer Klavier-Kammermusik (Marburg, 1963)
M. Staehelin: ‘Basels Musikleben im 18. Jahrhundert’, Die Ernte: Schweizerisches Jb, xliv (1963), 116–41
G. Seaman: ‘The First Russian Chamber Music’, MR, xxvi (1965), 326–37
W. Kirkendale: Fuge und Fugato in der Kammermusik des Rokoko und der Klassik (Tutzing, 1966; Eng. trans., rev., with M. Bent, 1979)
G. Seaman: ‘Amateur Music-Making in Russia’, ML, xlvii (1966), 249–59
H. Hering: ‘Das Klavier in der Kammermusik des 18. Jahrhunderts’,Mf, xxiii (1970), 22–37
R.R. Kidd: ‘The Emergence of Chamber Music with Obligato Keyboard in England’, AcM, xliv (1972), 122–44
J. Webster: ‘Towards a History of Viennese Chamber Music in the Early Classical Period’, JAMS, xxvii (1974), 212–47
R.X. Sanchez: Spanish Chamber Music of the Eighteenth Century (diss., Louisiana State U., 1975)
N.E. Tawa: ‘Secular Music in the Late-Eighteenth-Century American Home’,MQ, lxi (1975), 511–27
D.M. Bridges: The Social Setting of Musica da camera in Rome, 1667–1700 (diss., Peabody College, 1976)
M.D. Hermann: Chamber Music by Philadelphia Composers, 1750–1850 (diss., Bryn Mawr College, 1977)
U. Rau: Die Kammermusik für Klarinette und Streichinstrumente im Zeitalter der Wiener Klassik (Saarbrücken, 1977)
J. Webster: ‘Violoncello and Double Bass in the Chamber Music of Haydn and his Viennese Contemporaries’, JAMS, xxix (1977), 413–38
B.R. Compton: Amateur Instrumental Music in America, 1765 to 1810 (diss., Louisiana State U., 1979)
J.A. Sadie: The Bass Viol in French Baroque Chamber Music (Ann Arbor, 1980)
D.I. Caughill: A History of Instrumental Chamber Music in the Netherlands during the Early Baroque Era (diss., Indiana U., 1983)
Zur Entwicklung der instrumentalen Kammermusik in der 1. Hälfte des 18. Jahrhunderts: Blankenburg, Harz, 1985
J. Mongrédien: La musique en France des lumières au romantisme (1789–1830) (Paris, 1986; Eng. trans., 1996), 283–94
Zur Entwicklung der Kammermusik in der zweiten Hälfte des 18. Jahrhunderts Blankenburg, Harz, 1983
R. Leppert: Music and Image: Domesticity, Ideology and Socio-Cultural Formation in Eighteenth-Century England (Cambridge, 1988)
B.R. Hanning: ‘Conversation and Musical Style in the Late Eighteenth-Century Parisian Salon’, Eighteenth-Century Studies, xxii (1989),
14 de 16 29/09/2017 17:14
512–28
M.S. Morrow: Concert Life in Haydn’s Vienna: Aspects of a Developing Musical and Social Institution (Stuyvesant, NY, 1989)
N. Zaslaw, ed.: Man and Music: The Classical Era: From the 1740s to the End of the 18th Century (London, 1989)
H.D. Johnstone: ‘Music in the Home I’, Music in Britain: the Eighteenth Century, ed. H.D. Johnstone and R. Fiske (Oxford, 1990),
159–201
S. Sadie: ‘Music in the Home II’, Music in Britain: the Eighteenth Century, ed. H.D. Johnstone and R. Fiske (Oxford, 1990), 313–54
R. Wurtz: Dialogué: Vorrevolutionäre Kammermusik in Mannheim und Paris (Wilhelmshaven, 1990)
D.J. de Val: Gradus ad Parnassum: the Pianoforte in London, 1770–1820 (diss., U. of London, 1991)
M.G. Vaillancourt: Instrumental Ensemble Music at the Court of Leopold I (1685–1705) (diss., U. of Illinois, 1991)
R.J. Viano: ‘By Invitation Only: Private Concerts in France during the Second Half of the Eighteenth Century’, RMFC, xxvii (1991–2),
131–62
C.D.S. Field: ‘Consort Music I: up to 1660’, Music in Britain: the Seventeenth Century, ed. I. Spink (Oxford, 1992), 197–244
I. Spink: ‘Music and Society’, Music in Britain: the Seventeenth Century (Oxford, 1992), 1–65
M. Tilmouth and C.D.S. Field: ‘Consort Music II: from 1660’, Music in Britain: the Seventeenth Century, ed. I. Spink (Oxford, 1992),
245–81
G.J. Buelow, ed.: Man and Music: The Late Baroque Era: From the 1680s to 1740 (London, 1993)
C. Price, ed.: Man and Music: The Early Baroque Era: From the Late 16th Century to the 1660s (London, 1993)
S.J. Adams: Quartets and Quintets for Mixed Groups of Winds and Strings: Mozart and his Contemporaries in Vienna, c1780–c1800
(diss., Cornell U., 1994)
M.E. Parker: Soloistic Chamber Music at the Court of Friedrich Wilhelm II, 1786–1797 (diss., Indiana U., 1994)
19th and 20th centuries

EMC2 (‘Chamber Music Composition’, ‘Chamber Music Performance’; J. Beckwith)
E. Krause: Die Entwicklung der Kammermusik (Hamburg, 1904) [on chamber music in 19th-century Hamburg]
H. Antcliffe: ‘The Recent Rise of Chamber Music in England’,MQ, vi (1920), 12–23
C. Mackenzie: ‘Chamber Music on the Gramophone’, The Gramophone, ii (1924–5), 273–5, 364–5, 406–11
W. Kahl: ‘Die Neudeutschen und die Kammermusik’, Die Musik, xx (1927–8), 429–33
L.S. Jefferies: ‘Broadcasting’, and C. Mackenzie: ‘Gramophone and Chamber Music’, Cobbett’s Cyclopedic Survey of Chamber Music
(London, 1929–30)
H.P. Schanzlin: Basels private Musikpflege im 19. Jahrhundert (Basle, 1961)
B. Kortsen: Modern Norwegian Chamber Music (Haugesund, 1965, 2/1969)
B. Kortsen: Contemporary Norwegian Chamber Music (Bergen, 1971)
S. Bunge and R. Schoute: Sixty Years of Dutch Chamber Music (Amsterdam, 1974)
C. Ehrlich: The Piano: a History (Oxford, 1976, 2/1990)
O. Biba: ‘Franz Schubert in den musikalischen Abendunterhaltungen der Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde’, Schubert-Studien, ed. F.
Grasberger and O. Wessely (Vienna, 1978), 7–31
S. Gut and D. Pistone: La musique de chambre en France de 1870 à 1918 (Paris,1978)
H. Sievers: Kammermusik in Hannover: historisches, gegenwärtiges – Kritiken, Meinungen (Tutzing, 1980)
G. Bush: ‘Chamber Music’, Music in Britain: the Romantic Age, 1800–1914, ed. N. Temperley (London, 1981), 381–99
B. Bujic: ‘Chamber Music in the Twentieth Century: Cultural and Compositional Crisis of a Genre’, British Journal of Aesthetics, xxii
(1982), 115–25
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A.M. Hanson: Musical Life in Biedermeier Vienna (Cambridge, 1985), 82–126
J.-M. Fauquet: Les sociétés de musique de chambre à Paris de la Restauration à 1870 (Paris, 1986)
D.B. Scott: The Singing Bourgeois: Songs of the Victorian Drawing Room and Parlour (Milton Keynes and Philadelphia, 1989)
L. Plantinga: ‘The Piano and the Nineteenth Century’, Nineteenth-Century Piano Music, ed. R.L. Todd (New York, 1990), 1–15
A. Ringer, ed.: Man and Music: the Early Romantic Era: Between Revolutions: 1789 and 1848 (London, 1990)
J. Rosselli: Music and Musicians in Nineteenth-Century Italy (London, 1991), 124–5
J. Samson, ed.: Man and Music: The Late Romantic Era: From the Mid-19th Century to World War I (London, 1991)
Kammermusik zwischen den Weltkriegen: Vienna 1994
C. Bashford: Public Chamber-Music Concerts in London, 1835–50: Aspects of History, Repertory and Reception (diss., U. of London,
1996)
E. Leung-Wolf: Women, Music and the Salon Tradition: its Cultural and Historical Significance in Parisian Musical Society (diss., U. of
Cincinnati, 1996)
J. McCalla: Twentieth-Century Chamber Music (London, 1996)
S. McColl: Music Criticism in Vienna, 1896–1897: Critically Moving Forms (Oxford, 1996), 53–63
F. Morabito: La romanza vocale da camera in Italia (Amsterdam and Cremona, 1997)
D. de Val and C. Ehrlich: ‘Repertory and Canon’, The Cambridge Companion to the Piano, ed. D. Rowland (Cambridge, 1998), 117–34
C. Bashford: ‘Learning to Listen: Audiences for Chamber Music in Early-Victorian London’,Journal of Victorian Culture, iv (1999), 25–51
J. Etzion: ‘Música sabia: the Reception of Classical Music in Madrid (c1830–1870)’, International Journal of Musicology, viii (1999)
Christina Bashford
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Chamber music in Oxford Music Online http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/05...

Oxford Music Online

Grove Music Online

1. Usage and scope of the term.

See also TABLE-BOOK.

3. 17th and 18th centuries.

See also ACADEMY;COLLEGIUM MUSICUM ; andTAFELMUSIK (I).

See also HARMONIEMUSIK.

4. From 1800 to World War I.

(i) Concerts and repertory.

(ii) Domestic music-making.

See also CONCERT (II)and RECITAL.

5. After World War I.

(ii) Ensembles, sound recording and concerts.

(iii) Domestic music-making.

Repertory lists, catalogues

Performance and composition manuals

G. Stratton and A. Frank: The Playing of Chamber Music (Oxford, 1935)

A. Coeuroy and C. Rostand: Les chefs-d’oeuvre de la musique de chambre (Paris, 1952)

M. Berger: Guide to Chamber Music (London, 1985)

A. Werner-Jensen and L. Finscher: Reclams Kammermusikführer (Stuttgart, 1990)

H. Mersmann: Die Kammermusik (Leipzig, 1930–33)

D.F. Tovey: Essays in Musical Analysis: Chamber Music (London, 1944)

A.H. King: Chamber Music (London, 1948)

A. Robertson, ed.: Chamber Music (London, 1957)

D.N. Ferguson: Image and Structure in Chamber Music (Minneapolis, 1964)

Colloquium musica cameralis: Brno 1971

W. Salmen: Das Konzert (Munich, 1988), 96–109, 158–70

E.H. Meyer: Early English Chamber Music (London, 1946, 2/1982)

17th and 18th centuries

R.H. Rowen: Early Chamber Music (New York, 1949)

S. Sadie: British Chamber Music, 1720–1790 (diss., U. of Cambridge,1958)

E. Schmitt: Die Kurpfälzische Kammermusik im 18. Jahrhunderts (diss., U. of Heidelberg, 1958)

M. Tilmouth: Chamber Music in England, 1675–1720 (diss., U. of Cambridge, 1959–60)

R. Fuhrmann: Mannheimer Klavier-Kammermusik (Marburg, 1963)

G. Seaman: ‘Amateur Music-Making in Russia’, ML, xlvii (1966), 249–59

R. Wurtz: Dialogué: Vorrevolutionäre Kammermusik in Mannheim und Paris (Wilhelmshaven, 1990)

19th and 20th centuries

H. Antcliffe: ‘The Recent Rise of Chamber Music in England’,MQ, vi (1920), 12–23

H.P. Schanzlin: Basels private Musikpflege im 19. Jahrhundert (Basle, 1961)

B. Kortsen: Modern Norwegian Chamber Music (Haugesund, 1965, 2/1969)

B. Kortsen: Contemporary Norwegian Chamber Music (Bergen, 1971)

C. Ehrlich: The Piano: a History (Oxford, 1976, 2/1990)

S. Gut and D. Pistone: La musique de chambre en France de 1870 à 1918 (Paris,1978)

H. Sievers: Kammermusik in Hannover: historisches, gegenwärtiges – Kritiken, Meinungen (Tutzing, 1980)

A.M. Hanson: Musical Life in Biedermeier Vienna (Cambridge, 1985), 82–126

J. Rosselli: Music and Musicians in Nineteenth-Century Italy (London, 1991), 124–5

Kammermusik zwischen den Weltkriegen: Vienna 1994

J. McCalla: Twentieth-Century Chamber Music (London, 1996)

F. Morabito: La romanza vocale da camera in Italia (Amsterdam and Cremona, 1997)

Copyright © Oxford University Press 2007 — 2017.

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