chamber music

American  

noun

1. music suited for performance in a room or a small concert hall, especially for two or more, but usually fewer than ten, solo instruments.

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chamber music British  

noun

1. music for performance by a small group of instrumentalists

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chamber music Cultural  

1. Music for two or more instruments in which only one musician plays each part. Chamber music is distinguished from music for orchestra, in which, for example, more than a dozen violinists may be playing the same notes. The most familiar kind of chamber music is the string quartet.

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Etymology

Origin of chamber music

First recorded in 1780–90

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

chamber music

He graduated in piano and chamber music in 1951, and later in composition, before pursuing his studies in Paris for a year.

From Barron's ● Feb. 18, 2026

They move freely, obscuring borderlines between categories that once loomed like separate land masses: jazz and chamber music; acoustic and electric ensembles; songs and improvised forms.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 27, 2026

Along with conventional symphony and chamber music concerts, a bit of dance and theater is thrown in.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 23, 2025

For Clean Bandit, their signature sound is a simple, but effective, mixture of chamber music and dance beats.

From BBC ● Aug. 20, 2024

As well as nine symphonies and much chamber music, he wrote over six hundred songs before his death in 1828.

From "The Story of Music" by Howard Goodall

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