The String Quartet No. 2 by Ernest Bloch was composed between 1940 and 1945. The quartet averages 34 minutes to perform. Bloch wrote it following a close study of Beethoven’s sketches for the Eroica symphony.[1]
After its premiere, Ernest Newman called the String Quartet No. 2 "the finest work of our time in this genre, one that is worthy to stand beside the last quartets of Beethoven".[2] The composer himself called it "dry, not easy to listen to … and I doubt it will be liked".[3]
Today it is typically regarded as the finest of Bloch's five quartets.[1] Only in the second quartet did Bloch find a synthesis between formal sonata form structure and his "fundamentally improvisational and rhapsodic" thought, avoiding the weaknesses of cyclic procedures often evident in other works.[4]
The quartet is scored for 2 violins, viola and cello and is in four movements: