Violinist Irvine Arditti established the Arditti Quartet in 1974 during his student years at the Royal Academy of Music in London, and the ensemble has since become recognized internationally as a leading chamber group devoted to contemporary repertoire. The quartet has received hundreds of newly commissioned pieces and has consistently prioritized close collaboration with the composers involved. Composers who have written for the group include Harrison Birtwistle, John Cage, Elliott Carter, Brian Ferneyhough, Sofia Gubaidulina, Mauricio Kagel, György Ligeti, Conlon Nancarrow, Wolfgang Rihm, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Iannis Xenakis. The ensemble has also presented and documented the majority of the most significant string-quartet works composed during the twentieth century.
Irvine Arditti’s engagement with new music led him to collaborate with sympathetic musicians, among them cellist Rohan de Saram, who became a founding member in 1979 and remained until 2005, when Lucas Fels assumed the role. Graeme Jennings served as second violinist beginning in 1994 and was succeeded by Ashot Sarkissjan in 2005. Violist Dov Scheindlin joined in 1997 and was replaced by Ralf Ehlers in 2002.
Once the quartet gained recognition during the 1980s, it received invitations to appear at festivals of contemporary music around the globe. In 1982 its members were appointed tutors at the Darmstadt Summer Course for New Music and continued in that capacity through every biannual session until 1996. Master classes, workshops, and an extensive schedule of performances and recordings have remained the ensemble’s central pursuits.
Although the Arditti Quartet has maintained an intense level of activity across more than four decades, its individual members have simultaneously pursued independent projects. Irvine Arditti and Rohan de Saram in particular have been the dedicatees of numerous solo compositions by composers who have also written for the group. These close associations have encouraged an expansion into other chamber formats; Carter and Xenakis, for instance, composed piano quintets, while Ferneyhough’s Fourth String Quartet incorporates a soprano part. Electronic elements appear in works by Roger Reynolds and Gérard Pape. Through its sustained commitment to the music of the present, the quartet has become an essential presence in contemporary chamber-music life.
By 2019 the Arditti Quartet had issued more than 200 CDs. Its principal recorded legacy resides on the Auvidis Montaigne label, which accounts for over forty discs. These encompass landmark works by the Second Viennese School (Schoenberg, Berg, Webern), comprehensive editions devoted to Carter, Pascal Dusapin, Ferneyhough, Toshio Hosokawa, Kagel, and Xenakis, as well as anthologies representing Germany, Italy, Scandinavia, and the United States. In 2019 the ensemble released Jeu de tarot: Music by David Felder on the Coviello Classics label.
The Arditti Quartet has played a major part in restoring the string quartet to a position of relevance for new listeners and performers. In 1999 the group received the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize for lifetime achievement, among Europe’s most distinguished honors. Additional distinctions include the Deutsche Schallplatten Preis and three Gramophone awards.
