In 1939, at the age of 58, Béla Bartók completed his Sixth String Quartet. It was to be his last. In the summer of 1945 he sketched a few ideas for a Seventh, but his failing health prevented further work on the composition. He died in September in New York. Over half a century has therefore elapsed since Bartók brought to an end his series of string quartets, a body of music which has influenced, to an almost unprecedented degree and in many different ways, the composition of many subsequent works in the genre, there being few succeeding composers who have not been stimulated at some time by his important contribution to quartet writing.