With this edition, Schott publishes the early two-movement string quartet by Bernd Alois Zimmermann for the first time. In a letter the composer wrote: 'I am still messing around with my quartet. This probably is the most concentrated work of composition - and the most abstract.' The string quartet belongs within the context of his early works which focussed on chamber music, unlike those of later years. Until 1945, he created a number of piano pieces and songs, a Suite for Violin and Piano as well as a String Trio (ED 7563).