[1] Leader Melcher of Hamburg studied with Erich Röhn and with both Pina Carmirelli and Arrigo Pelliccia of the Boccherini Quintet in Rome.

They studied with Sandor Végh, and Hermann continued as a pupil of Ulrich Koch, becoming solo violist of the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra.

In 1966 the group gave its first recital, won a prize in the Villa-Lobos-Quartet competition in Rio de Janeiro, represented West Germany at the World Congress of Jeuness Musicale in Paris, and, most influentially for their future success, won the Prix américain as the best quartet at the Geneva International Congress of Musical Performance.

By 1975, when the Schubert integral recordings were completed and issued, the Quartet also held a teaching post at the Stuttgart School of Music.

By 1975 the group had built up a repertoire of 120 works, including the complete Beethoven, Schubert, Cherubini, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Brahms, Janáček quartets, and works by Haydn, Mozart, Hugo Wolf, Pfitzner, Verdi, Donizetti, Debussy, Smetana, Kodály, Hindemith, Bartók, Alban Berg, Gian Francesco Malipiero, Witold Lutosławski, Milko Kelemen, Robert Wittinger and Josef Maria Horváth.

Among others, the Quartet collaborated with Arthur Rubinstein, Mstislav Rostropovich, Georg Solti, Narciso Yepes, Piero Farulli and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau.