For nearly a century, it has inspired composers, scholars, critics, performers, and visual artists. Severine Neff re-creates for her readers the quartet's historical, cultural, and musical background-its introduction of the human voice, its genesis during a personal crisis in the composer's life, the scandal at its premiere, and its endlessly controversial reception, both critical and analytic. This volume includes a newly edited, authoritative score of the quartet, as well as previously unavailable and newly translated texts by Grant Chorley. "Indispensable for understanding one of the central compositions of the twentieth century."-Walter Frisch, Columbia University.