This was written in 1877 - 1878 in the work-hut he had built for himself at Lofthus, during a period when he was not accompanied to this country retreat by his wife, with whom his relationship had not always been easy. The quartet makes use of a setting of words by Ibsen that reflect the thoughts of a musician separated from his beloved, meditating, as he walks on a summer evening by a stream, on the possibility of some water spirit bringing his beloved to him again. The melody of the song provides the characteristic motto theme that is first heard in the slow introduction to the first movement of the quartet and then transformed as the second theme in an Allegro molto.This Grieg motif, which will be familiar to many from the opening of Grieg's Piano Concerto, recurs throughout the work, ensuring an element of cyclic unity. The tranquil second movement Romanze is interrupted by this motif and the Intermezzo third movement starts with it and continues in this vein, relaxing into a central trio section in what is in fact a scherzo. The last movement opens with a slow introduction, where the motto theme is heard again, before the final rapid dance, which ends with a concluding optimism in G major.

The G minor Quartet proved unacceptable to Grieg's publisher, Peters, where Dr. Abraham, who usually gave his composer every encouragement, found the work too thick in texture for a string quartet, objecting to the use of double-stopping that in places seemed to suggest the need for a piano. The quartet was, however, taken up by Robert Heckmann and the first performance was given in Cologne by the Heckmann Quartet in October 1878 as part of a programme that included the Second Violin Sonata, played by Heckmann and Grieg himself, and a group of songs by Grieg. The quartet rapidly won popularity, meeting the approval of Liszt, who heard it at Wiesbaden, and winning less probable acclaim in Rome. The work was later published by Peters, after its first publication by a much smaller and more adventurous German publishing-house.