During his stay in Linz, Bruckner composed his String Quartet in 1862 as a student exercise assigned by his form and orchestration teacher, Otto Kitzler.

[13] Leopold Nowak, the musicologist known for editing the works of Bruckner, was permitted to access the Kitzler-Studienbuch, which was in private possession, and to transcribe the Rondo in C minor.

Herewith one can recognise a tendency to convergence to the sonata form.Das Rondothema tritt viermal auf und schließt drei Episoden ein, wobei die erste von Bruckner selbst als „Gesanggruppe“ bezeichnet wurde.

He also describes "a more fully developed central section, serving to place less emphasis on the themes at their reappearance" and a coda that "draws on more imitative means to less forceful ends".

[17] The critic Robert Markow for the music publication Fanfare suggests that the Rondo "sounds far more like Haydn than like the Bruckner we know from the symphonies that were soon to follow".