septet

Group portrait of septet of jazz musicians with instruments and trophy, ca. 1920|thumb|300x300px A septet is a formation containing exactly seven members. It is commonly associated with musical groups but can be applied to any situation where seven similar or related objects are considered a single unit, such as a seven-line stanza of poetry. == Classical and romantic period == One of the most famous classical septets is Beethoven's Septet in E major, Op. 20, composed around 1799–1800, for clarinet, bassoon, horn, violin, viola, cello, and double bass. The popularity of Beethoven's septet made its combination of instruments a standard for subsequent composers, including Conradin Kreutzer (Op. 62, 1822), Franz Berwald, and Adolphe Blanc (Op. 40, ca. 1864), and, with small changes in the instrumentation, Franz Lachner (1824; violin, viola, violoncello, contrabass, flute, clarinet, horn), and Max Bruch (1849; No Opus; Clarinet, Horn, Bassoon, two Violins, Cello and Contrabass). When Franz Schubert added a second violin in 1824 for his Octet, he created a standard octet that influenced many other subsequent composers . Camille Saint-Saëns's Septet in E major, Op. 65 (1881) is for trumpet, piano, string quartet, and double bass. The English composer Percy Hilder Miles composed his "Jupiter" Septet in Eb (1897) for the same forces as the Beethoven.

== 20th century ==