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.