Chamber music is a form of classical music that is composed for a small group of instruments—traditionally a group that could fit in a palace chamber or a large room. Most broadly, it includes any art music that is performed by a small number of performers, with one performer to a part. However, by convention, it usually does not include solo instrument performances.
Frederick the Great plays flute in his summer palace Sanssouci, with Franz Benda playing violin, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach accompanying on keyboard, and unidentified string players; painting by Adolph Menzel (1850–52)
Plato, Aristotle, Hippocrates and Galen play a piece on viols in this fanciful woodcut from 1516.
Baroque musicians playing a trio sonata, 18th-century anonymous painting
Copy of a pianoforte from 1805
The violin family of musical instruments was developed in Italy in the 16th century. At the time the name of this family of instruments was viole da braccio which was used to distinguish them from the viol family. The standard modern violin family consists of the violin, viola, cello, and (possibly) double bass.
Violin, viola, and cello bow frogs (top to bottom)
An octobass
Image: Cello front side
Image: AGK bass 1 full
