“Solid classical construction”, as d’Indy wrote, Saint-Saëns’ first string quartet Op. 112, composed in 1899 and dedicated to the violinist Ysaÿe, nevertheless liberates itself from the ‘classical models’ in many ways. With regard to both the form of the various movements and the writing for string instruments, this work seems to diverge from the classical string quartet tradition. As a kind of ‘negative picture’, traditional analysis tools allow to find what deviates from the models, but cannot show all the particularities of the work, for which the context and the tradition of string quartet in France play an important role.