“Astonishing virtuosity and bravery”:
Arditti Quartet plays its specialty, new music, on March 26
HANOVER, NH—British violinist Irvine Arditti pestered his long-time friend Karlheinz Stockhausen for a decade
to write something for the Arditti Quartet before the iconoclastic, uncompromising composer consented to
do so. “He was so contemptuous,” Arditti told The Telegraph in 2012. “‘I do not write string quartets and
symphonies!’ he said.”
Unless air travel is involved, apparently: In 1995, the
quartet premiered Stockhausen’s now-legendary
Helicopter Quartet, in which the members of a string
quartet go aloft, each in his own helicopter, and relay
their parts via video cameras to the curious audience
back on Mother Earth. Stockhausen reported that the
piece came to him in a dream, helicopters and all.
This is typical of the daring, abandon and commitment
that Arditti's quartet brings to the performance of the
music of the 20th and 21st centuries, a realm in which it
has reigned supreme for nearly 40 years. Wrote The
Financial Times, London, “Their story is a prime example of how a group of musicians cannot just survive but
prosper in the highly competitive world of chamber music if they are adventurous enough.”
The Arditti Quartet—made up of Arditti, the one remaining founding member, and violinist Ashot Sarkissjan,
violist Ralf Ehlers and cellist Lucas Fels—performs in the Hop’s Spaulding Auditorium on Wednesday, March
26, at 7 pm, as part of a week-long residency with the Dartmouth Department of Music. The program features
three works that are among the hundreds the quartet has premiered since Irvine Arditti founded it in 1975:
Quartet No. 2 (1988-89) by Jonathan Harvey, The Tree of Strings (2007) by Harrison Birtwistle, and Differences
within oneness (2008-09) by Kui Dong, a Dartmouth music professor. The group also plays Three Pieces (1914)
by Igor Stravinsky and Elliott Carter’s haunting and profound Elegy (1943, arr. for quartet 1946).
For a deeper look at the music the quartet will play, there is a free pre-show talk, "Learning to Listen," at 6 pm
the day of the concetrt, in Room 219 of Wilson Hall. Dartmouth music Professor Michael Casey will guide the
audience throught the sounds and textures of 21st-century string composition including some from the Arditti
program.
The UK-based group’s more than 190 CDs (including award-winning recordings of works by Carter and
Birtwistle) and busy international schedule of concerts have won it an enduring international following.
“One could not ask for a richer, more erudite and yes, more passionate demonstration of what
contemporary string quartet writing is all about,” wrote Seen and Heard International Recital Review of a
US concert. Writes The Guardian (UK), “It is impossible to overstate the impact of the Arditti Quartet on the
development of contemporary chamber music.”
Born in 1953, founder Arditti was a budding violinist of 12 when he heard his first contemporary classical
music. He was smitten, and after graduating from England’s Royal Academy of Music at age 21, founded a
quartet devoted to playing only contemporary music. Soon, the BBC began broadcasting Arditti Quartet
concerts and composers flocked to them with new work to try. The group developed a method of working
closely with composers before premiering a piece, a practice it continues to this day. Composers whose work
the group has premiered include Thomas Ades, Benjamin Britten, John Cage, György Ligeti and Colin
Nancarrow. Over the past 30 years, the ensemble has received prizes including the Gramophone Award for
the best recording of contemporary music in 1999 (Carter) and 2002 (Birtwistle); and, in 2004, the “Coup de
Coeur” prize by the Academie Charles Cros in France for their exceptional contribution to the dissemination of
contemporary music. The prestigious Ernst von Siemens Music Prize was awarded to them in 1999 for ‘lifetime
achievement’ in music. They remain to this day, the only ensemble ever to receive it.
Gentle and soft-spoken, Arditti becomes fiery when he plays, wrote The Telegraph. “He’s made a speciality of
the most technically taxing form of contemporary violin music….To see Arditti in full flood, bow bouncing, left
hand flying in a blur of movement over the fingerboard, is to be left amazed that this humble wooden box can
produce such strange sounds.”
RELEVANT LINKS
https://hop.dartmouth.edu/Online/arditti_quartet
Artists' websites
http://www.ownvoice.com/ardittiquartet/
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~kui/
http://www.vivosvoco.com/
http://www.universaledition.com/Sir-Harrison-Birtwistle/composers-and-works/composer/64
Recent reviews of and features on Arditti Quartet
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/97152fde-3715-11e3-9603-00144feab7de.html#axzz2uSuRqzBn
http://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/oct/18/arditti-quartet-review
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/classicalconcertreviews/10454043/Arditti-QuartetHuddersfield-Contemporary-Music-Festival-review.html
Download high-resolution photos:
https://hop.dartmouth.edu/Online/default.asp?doWork::WScontent::loadArticle=Load&BOparam::WScont
ent::loadArticle::article_id=A14ACB33-679C-469F-9E075A08469894E7&sessionlanguage=&SessionSecurity::linkName=
CALENDAR LISTINGS:
Arditti Quartet
Few ensembles demonstrate as fierce a devotion to contemporary music as the Arditti Quartet, and even
fewer offer such illuminating and commanding interpretations. Through close collaboration with the
composers whose works it plays, the quartet is uniquely able to communicate their visions. Its Hop program
features three works the quartet has premiered—by Harrison Birtwistle, Jonathan Harvey and Dartmouth
music professor Kui Dong—along with Igor Stravinsky’s 3 Pieces (1914) and Elliott Carter’s Elegy (1946).
Wednesday, March 26, 7 pm
Spaulding Auditorium, Hopkins Center for the Arts, Hanover NH
Tickets $25/35/40; Dartmouth students $10; 18 & under $17/17/19
Information: Hopkins Center Box Office, 603.646.2422 or hop.dartmouth.edu
Pre-Show Talk: Learning to Listen
In this introduction to contemporary classical music, Dartmouth music Professor Michael Casey guides the
audience through the sounds and textures of 21st-century string composition, including selected composers
featured on Arditti's program.
Wednesday, March 26, 6 pm
Room 219, Wilson Hall, Dartmouth College, Hanover NH
Free
Information: Hop Outreach, 603.646.2010
* * *
Founded in 1962, the Hopkins Center for the Arts is a multi-disciplinary academic, visual and performing
arts center dedicated to uncovering insights, igniting passions, and nurturing talents to help Dartmouth and
the surrounding Upper Valley community engage imaginatively and contribute creatively to our world. Each
year the Hop presents more than 300 live events and films by visiting artists as well as Dartmouth students
and the Dartmouth community, and reaches more than 22,000 Upper Valley residents and students with
outreach and arts education programs. After a celebratory 50th-anniversary season in 2012-13, the Hop
enters its second half-century with renewed passion for mentoring young artists, supporting the
development of new work, and providing a laboratory for participation and experimentation in the arts.
CONTACT:
Rebecca Bailey, Publicity Coordinator/Writer
Hopkins Center for the Arts, Dartmouth College
rebecca.a.bailey@dartmouth.edu
693.646.3991