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".
[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: This article about a classical composition is a stub.