 Playing chamber music requires special skills, both musical and social, that differ from the skills required for playing solo or symphonic works.Johann Wolfgang von Goethe described chamber music (specifically, string quartet music) as "four rational people conversing".This conversational paradigm – which refers to the way one instrument introduces a melody or motif and then other instruments subsequently "respond" with a similar motif – has been a thread woven through the history of chamber music composition from the end of the 18th century to the present.