Ligeti's String Quartet No. 1 was written in Budapest in 1953-1954, but not premiered until May 8, 1958, by the Ramor Quartet in Vienna. By that time Ligeti had already left the Soviet-controlled Hungary for the West and had been introduced to music that had only barely penetrated the Eastern bloc; including the music of Stockhausen and Boulez, the advent of serialism, and the electronic music studios. Ligeti's own progress as a composer put him far beyond the influence of Kodály, Bartók, and the Hungarian nationalism that permeated most of his work in Budapest. He has returned to these influences more and more explicitly, for example in the Piano Études of the 1980s and 1990s. Bartók's influence on Ligeti's music is twofold, and includes his sophisticated sense of rhythm and motivic development, and also his lifelong use of folk song and folk-influenced musical materials. Ligeti's Musica ricercata for piano; their offspring, the Six Bagatelles for wind quintet; and the String Quartet No. 1 show these influences most clearly.

Although the String Quartet No. 1 is ostensibly a one-movement work lasting over 20 minutes, this single movement makes up many sections of disparate character. The piece opens with a stepwise melody (G-A-G sharp-A sharp) accompanied by chromatic scales. A second theme is angular, staccato, and aggressive. Closer attention to these two apparently disparate sections, however, reveals similarities in their melodic contours, which are based on the relatively simple chromaticism of the opening motif. New ideas and textures succeed one another throughout the piece, typically in fast-slow-fast alternation (another Bartók technique), but the melodic characteristics of each section may be traced to the piece's opening. Variation of rhythm provides the piece with much of its sense of progression, with somewhat amorphous passages giving way to the quick irregular meters of a dance form; there are also other stylistic parodies of folk music. Use of biting dissonance (one of the reasons the composer's more advanced work was not officially supported) occurs throughout; the second section features passages of parallel minor seconds. Ligeti's ear for unusual timbral possibilities is already at work in this early piece. High harmonic glissandi near the end of the work may presage the distinctive sound of Apparitions and the later pieces for which Ligeti came to be known.

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