At the time, he and Peter Pears were staying as guests of the English piano duo Ethel Bartlett and Rae Robertson in Escondido near San Diego, California.

[1]: 153, 160 The premiere performance was on 21 September 1941 at Occidental College, in Los Angeles, with the composer present,[1]: 159  by the Coolidge Quartet.

[5][6] The sonata-form first movement contains alternating andante and allegro passages, the slow and fast music playing for similar durations.

[5] According to Britten's biographer Humphrey Carpenter, the tense and restless character of the quartet may reflect an emotional turmoil in the composer; or, perhaps, partly derive from his working conditions – he had had to shut himself in a tool shed and turn on a fan to drown out the sound of his hosts' piano practice.

He wrote, "the extremely subtle relationship between inherent characteristics of the material and its structural working-out showed Britten at twenty-seven to be a master of tonal architecture with scarcely a rival on the English scene".

"Critical reaction to the quartet was largely strong, and the work is held in good regard by authorities on the composer, despite acknowledgement of a few formal quirks and minor shortcomings."