The Arditti Quartet is a string quartet

String quartet

A string quartet is a musical ensemble of four string players – usually two violin players, a violist and a cellist – or a piece written to be performed by such a group...

 founded in 1974. The quartet is associated particularly with contemporary music.

Early history

The quartet was founded in 1974 by violinist Irvine Arditti

Irvine Arditti

Irvine Arditti is a British violinist.-Life:He began his studies at the Royal Academy of Music at the age of 16 where he studied with Clarence Myerscough and Manoug Parikian. He joined the London Symphony Orchestra in 1976 and after two years, at the age of 25, became its Co-Concert Master...

 together with John Senter, Levine Andrade and Lenox Mackenzie. String quartets and other chamber works have been written for the ensemble..

Premieres

World premieres have included works by composers such as Thomas Adès

Thomas Adès

Thomas Adès is a British composer, pianist and conductor.-Biography:Adès studied piano with Paul Berkowitz and later composition with Robert Saxton at Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London...

, Louis Andriessen

Louis Andriessen

Louis Andriessen is a Dutch composer and pianist based in Amsterdam. He teaches composition at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague...

, Georges Aperghis

Georges Aperghis

Georges Aperghis is a Greek composer working primarily in the field of experimental music theater but has also composed a large amount of non-programmatic chamber music...

, Harrison Birtwistle

Harrison Birtwistle

Sir Harrison Paul Birtwistle CH is a British contemporary composer.-Life:Birtwistle was born in Accrington, a mill town in Lancashire some 20 miles north of Manchester. His interest in music was encouraged by his mother, who bought him a clarinet when he was seven, and arranged for him to have...

, Benjamin Britten

Benjamin Britten

Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten, OM CH was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He showed talent from an early age, and first came to public attention with the a cappella choral work A Boy Was Born in 1934. With the premiere of his opera Peter Grimes in 1945, he leapt to...

, John Cage

John Cage

John Milton Cage Jr. was an American composer, music theorist, writer, philosopher and artist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde...

, Elliott Carter

Elliott Carter

Elliott Cook Carter, Jr. is a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer born and living in New York City. He studied with Nadia Boulanger in Paris in the 1930s, and then returned to the United States. After a neoclassical phase, he went on to write atonal, rhythmically complex music...

, Edison Denisov

Edison Denisov

Edison Vasilievich Denisov was a Russian composer of so called "Underground" — "Anti-Collectivist", "alternative" or "nonconformist" division in the Soviet music.-Biography:...

, James Dillon

James Dillon (composer)

James Dillon, born October 29, 1950 in Glasgow, Scotland, is a Scottish composer often regarded as belonging to the New Complexity school. Dillon studied art and design, linguistics, piano, acoustics, Indian rhythm, mathematics and computer music, but is self-taught in composition.Honors include...

, Hugues Dufourt

Hugues Dufourt

Hugues Dufourt is a French composer and philosopher associated with the Spectral school of composition. Born in Lyon on September 28 1943, Dufourt studied piano and composition at the Geneva Conservatory....

, Pascal Dusapin

Pascal Dusapin

Pascal Dusapin , is a French composer born in Nancy. He is one of France's best-known living composers; his works have been performed worldwide....

, Ivan Fedele, Morton Feldman

Morton Feldman

Morton Feldman was an American composer, born in New York City.A major figure in 20th century music, Feldman was a pioneer of indeterminate music, a development associated with the experimental New York School of composers also including John Cage, Christian Wolff, and Earle Brown...

, Brian Ferneyhough

Brian Ferneyhough

Brian John Peter Ferneyhough is an English composer. His music is characterized by the extensive use of complex rhythmic tuplet notation which features in all his works...

, Luca Francesconi, Francisco Guerrero

Francisco Guerrero

Francisco Guerrero was a Spanish composer of the Renaissance. He was born and died in Seville.Guerrero's early musical education was with his older brother Pedro. He must have been an astonishing prodigy, for at the age of 17 he was already appointed maestro de capilla at Jaén Cathedral...

, Sofia Gubaidulina

Sofia Gubaidulina

Sofia Asgatovna Gubaidulina, is a Russian composer of half Russian, half Tatar ethnicity.Gubaidulina's music is marked by the use of unusual instrumental combinations...

, Jonathan Harvey

Jonathan Harvey (composer)

Jonathan Harvey is a British composer. He has held teaching positions at universities and music conservatories in Europe and the USA and is frequently invited to teach in summer schools around the world.-Life:...

, Toshio Hosokawa

Toshio Hosokawa

is a Japanese composer of contemporary classical music.-Biography:Hosokawa studied with Yun Isang at the Berlin University of the Arts. Since 1998, Hosokawa has served as Composer-in-Residence at the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra. In 2004, Hosokawa became a guest professor at Tokyo College of Music...

, Klaus Huber

Klaus Huber

Klaus Huber is a Swiss composer.Huber was born in Bern, Switzerland. One of the leading figures of his generation in Europe, he has written extensively for chamber ensembles, choirs, soloists and the orchestra as well as the theater...

, Mauricio Kagel

Mauricio Kagel

Mauricio Kagel was a German-Argentine composer. He was notable for his interest in developing the theatrical side of musical performance .-Biography:...

, György Kurtág

György Kurtág

György Kurtág is a Hungarian composer of contemporary music.- Biography :György Kurtág was born in Lugoj in the Banat region, Romania.In 1946, he began his studies at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest, where he met his wife, Márta, and also György Ligeti, who became a close friend...

, Helmut Lachenmann

Helmut Lachenmann

Helmut Lachenmann is a German composer associated with musique concrète instrumentale.-Life and works:...

, György Ligeti

György Ligeti

György Sándor Ligeti was a composer of contemporary classical music. Born in a Hungarian Jewish family in Transylvania, Romania, he briefly lived in Hungary before becoming an Austrian citizen.-Early life:...

, Bruno Maderna

Bruno Maderna

Bruno Maderna was an Italian conductor and composer. For the last ten years of his life he lived in Germany and eventually became a citizen of that country.-Biography:...

, Conlon Nancarrow

Conlon Nancarrow

Conlon Nancarrow was a United States-born composer who lived and worked in Mexico for most of his life. He became a Mexican citizen in 1955.Nancarrow is best remembered for the pieces he wrote for the player piano...

, Roger Reynolds

Roger Reynolds

Roger Reynolds is an American composer born July 18, 1934 in Detroit, Michigan. He is a professor at the University of California at San Diego. He received an undergraduate degree in engineering physics from the University of Michigan where he later studied composition with Ross Lee Finney...

, Wolfgang Rihm

Wolfgang Rihm

Wolfgang Rihm is a German composer.Rihm is Head of the Institute of Modern Music at the Karlsruhe Conservatory of Music and has been composer in residence at the Lucerne Festival and the Salzburg Festival...

, Giacinto Scelsi

Giacinto Scelsi

Giacinto Scelsi , Count of Ayala Valva was an Italian composer who also wrote surrealist poetry in French....

, Salvatore Sciarrino

Salvatore Sciarrino

Salvatore Sciarrino is an Italian composer of contemporary classical music.-Biography:In his youth, Sciarrino was attracted to the visual arts, but began experimenting with music when he was twelve. Though he had some lessons from Antonino Titone and Turi Belfiore, he is primarily self-taught as a...

, Alexander Shchetynsky

Alexander Shchetynsky

Alexander Shchetynsky is a Ukrainian composer. Born on 22 June 1960 in Kharkiv, in the Ukrainian SSR of the Soviet Union. His work list includes compositions in various forms ranging from solo instrumental to orchestral, choral pieces and operas....

, Karlheinz Stockhausen

Karlheinz Stockhausen

Karlheinz Stockhausen was a German composer, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important but also controversial composers of the 20th and early 21st centuries. Another critic calls him "one of the great visionaries of 20th-century music"...

, Iannis Xenakis

Iannis Xenakis

Iannis Xenakis was a Romanian-born Greek ethnic, naturalized French composer, music theorist, and architect-engineer. He is commonly recognized as one of the most important post-war avant-garde composers...

, Marco Uvietta.

Ethos

The ensemble believes that close collaboration with composers is vital to the process of interpreting modern music and therefore attempts to work with every composer whose music it plays. The players' commitment to educational work is exemplified by their masterclasses and workshops for young performers and composers all over the world. From 1982 to 1996 the quartet’s members were resident string tutors at the Darmstadt Summer Courses for New Music.

Recordings

The Arditti Quartet’s extensive discography now features over 170 CDs. Forty-two discs have been released as part of the ensemble’s series on the French label Naïve Montaigne. The series presents numerous contemporary composer features as well as the first digital recordings of the complete Second Viennese School

Second Viennese School

The Second Viennese School is the group of composers that comprised Arnold Schoenberg and his pupils and close associates in early 20th century Vienna, where he lived and taught, sporadically, between 1903 and 1925...

's string quartet music. Stockhausen’s Helicopter Quartet is to be found here. As well as many composer portraits recorded in their presence, the complete quartets of Luciano Berio

Luciano Berio

Luciano Berio, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI was an Italian composer. He is noted for his experimental work and also for his pioneering work in electronic music.-Biography:Berio was born at Oneglia Luciano Berio, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI (October 24, 1925 – May 27, 2003) was an Italian...

 were recorded shortly before his death. The quartet have recorded for more than 20 other labels and some of the latest releases include music by Harvey and Dusapin.

Recognition

Over the past 25 years, the ensemble has received many prizes for its work. They have won the Deutsche Schallplatten Preis several times and the Gramophone Award for the best recording of contemporary music in 1999 (Elliott Carter) and 2002 (Harrison Birtwistle). The prestigious Ernst von Siemens Music Prize

Ernst von Siemens Music Prize

The international Ernst von Siemens Music Prize is an annual music prize given by the Bayerische Akademie der Schönen Künste on behalf of the Ernst von Siemens Musikstiftung , established in 1972. The foundation was established by Ernst von Siemens...

 was awarded to them in 1999 for "lifetime achievement" in music.

Members

• Irvine Arditti
  Irvine Arditti
  Irvine Arditti is a British violinist.-Life:He began his studies at the Royal Academy of Music at the age of 16 where he studied with Clarence Myerscough and Manoug Parikian. He joined the London Symphony Orchestra in 1976 and after two years, at the age of 25, became its Co-Concert Master...
  
   (violin) 1974-
• Ashot Sarkissjan (violin) 2005-
• Ralf Ehlers (viola) 2003-
• Lucas Fels (cello) 2006-

Violin 2

• Lennox Mackenzie 1974-1983
• Alexander Balanescu
  Alexander Balanescu
  Alexander Bălănescu is a violinist and founder of the Balanescu Quartet.He emigrated with his family to Israel in 1969....
  
   1983-85
• David Alberman 1985-1994
• Graeme Jennings 1994-2005

External links

• Official Website
• Discography at SonyBMG Masterworks
• Arditti Quartet interview by Bruce Duffie, March 1, 1992