Gifts and Greetings Arditti String Quartet

• 1 In Verbundenheit 03:39
• 2 For Arditti Quartet 03:42
• 3 Small River in Distance 06:59
• 4 Silentium 07:08
• 5 Wahrheitsverfahren (I: Wissenschaft) 04:32
• 6 IV 13a 01:29
• 7 L'aggiustasogi 02:06
• 8 Alla Rinfusa 01:15
• 9 Dinoccolato 01:54
• 10 Immobile. 03:12
• 11 The Weaver's Knot 06:32
• 12 Hoquetus Irvinius 04:17
• 13 Hacia una Bitácora Capilar 08:23
• 14 String Quartet No. 3 05:17
• 15 Lair 03:53
• 16 Caprice 13 05:04
• 17 Stringendo (Zugabe Für Emil Breisach) 02:46
• Total Runtime 01:12:08

Info for Gifts and Greetings

It seems only yesterday when we did our first concert in the Royal academy of music. It was, in fact it was a yesterday quite long ago in March 1974. The young Arditti Quartet was born at that point to stimulate composers and occasionally annoy some of the critics.

I think it was quite a way back into the last century that Paul Griffiths entitle a review of one of our London concerts in the Times newspaper as ‘These Four must be stopped’. Why?

Stopped because we were rehearsing seriously and performing with commitment every single score that was put in front of us, transcending the composers notes and bring the music to a higher level. A commitment that has continuously been the task of the group. Maybe not every score deserved that treatment…

In the mid ‘70’s I remember trying very hard to get into an article Stockhausen had written for Die Reihe called ‘How time passes’. I remember being more fascinated by the title than the article. From time to time I reflect on both the article and the time that has passed somehow seamlessly over 40 years of concertising, recording and teaching.

For many years into our career we were known as the young British quartet, even though several of our members were not British. From the very beginning I have thought of the group as international and over the years, several changes of members have kept that so.

Young no more, I have always tried to refresh departing members with younger one’s so the average age of the group is constantly decreasing.

Now I can look back over a huge repertoire that we have created over the years and many friendships that I have had with composers over that time, making sure that their ideas were reflected as clearly and as accurately as it was in their minds. I have worked with so many great composers who no longer live and I now consider it my responsibility is to pass on the music of Berio, Boulez, Cage, Carter, Dutilleux, Lutoslawski, Nono, Stockhausen, Xenakis, as they wanted it to be heard.

I think it is really important to get to know ‘your’ composers, eat with them, find how they think and want to hear their music. This has been one of the real gems of my career.

People often ask me what is a good piece and for many years I was reluctant to answer this question. Now I would say it is a piece that stimulates the ear, the mind and the soul in whatever style and occupies its length for just the right amount of time, giving us hope in the future of human imagination and the high potentials of humanity.

Anniversary’s tend to be a time to celebrate, looking both backwards and forwards. We have asked composers on many occasions to write a short piece to celebrate this time. Sometimes we have been asked to celebrate others and in 1991 we were asked to perform 32 pieces for the occasion of Alfred Schlee’s 90th birthday. Alfred was for many years the director of Universal edition in Vienna having been there at the time of Berg and Webern. Many composers were indebted to this publishing house for assisting their career at some point.

Many icons of contemporary music participated and many of the short pieces were later enlarged to be the germ of an idea or the starting point for larger scale works. Berio springs to mind with a short piece that became the seed for his large quartet Notturno. Birtwistle wrote a very energetic short movement that later became the 3rd movement of his 9 movements. (1st quartet) There were quartets by many others an also solo pieces. Ligeti wrote Loop, the first written movement of his viola sonate and Boulez wrote the backbone of his Anthems for violin, later to enlarge a develop this first version. Even Messiaen wrote a short piano quintet.

There have been many other occasions when various anniversary’s of the quartet were celebrated. Memories of three works for quartet and orchestra and a large birthday cake at our 20th in Paris. Many pieces by many composers had to be played by present and ex-members for my 50th birthday party and I was sentenced to listen only save one pizzicato from Herr Rihm who insisted I was too good to just sit and listen.

But, we can now fast forward to 2014 and this present CD. This repertoire reflects a different ‘crop’ of composers, mostly from a different generation but two composers are the same. Both Birtwistle and Rihm wrote pieces for both the Schlee concert and our celebrations in the Witten new music days in 2014 after which this recording was made under my supervision by the WDR in Cologne. I believe this is a testament to our friendship and mutual respect for and by these two composers who over the years have both written many works for the quartet. Rihm’s piece is titled In Friendship and Birtwistle’s Hoquetus Irvinius. Both pieces at the moment stand alone, and are not part of any more large scale works. There are works by old friends, Ferneyhough, Hosokawa, Lim and Stroppa and there are more recent acquaintances, Abrahamsen, Andre, and Haas. We were even lucky enough to be able to include two quartets by Clarke and Staud that were part of anniversary celebrations in London and Graz during 2014. We extended to quintets for two works, Caine and Pauset, inviting the composers to join us in performing the piano and harpsichord respectively.

For such an occasion, no CD would be complete without a work from my dear wife Hilda Paredes who for many years has helped and supported the quartet. Her contribution here is an unparalleled insight into the Quartets’ life.

Irvine Arditti, 1st violin
Ashot Sarkissjan, 2nd violin
Ralf Ehlers, viola
Lucas Fels, cello
Brice Pauset, cembalo
Uri Caine, piano

The Arditti Quartet
enjoys a world-wide reputation for their spirited and technically refined interpretations of contemporary and earlier 20th century music. Many hundreds of string quartets and other chamber works have been written for the ensemble since its foundation by first violinist Irvine Arditti in 1974. Many of these works have left a permanent mark on 20th century repertoire and have given the Arditti Quartet a firm place in music history. World premieres of quartets by composers such as Ades, Andriessen, Aperghis, Birtwistle, Britten, Cage, Carter, Denisov, Dillon, Dufourt, Dusapin, Fedele, Ferneyhough, Francesconi, Gubaidulina, Guerrero, Harvey, Hosokawa, Kagel, Kurtag, Lachenmann, Ligeti, Maderna, Manoury, Nancarrow, Reynolds, Rihm, Scelsi, Sciarrino, Stockhausen and Xenakis and hundreds more show the wide range of music in the Arditti Quartet’s repertoire.

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 it plays.

The players’ commitment to educational work is indicated by their masterclasses and workshops for young performers and composers all over the world.

The Arditti Quartet’s extensive discography now features over 190 CDs. 42 CD's were released as part of the ensemble's series on Naive Montaigne. This series set the trend, by presenting numerous contemporary composer features, recorded in their presence as well as the first digital recordings of the complete Second Viennese School's chamber music for strings. The quartet has recorded for more than 20 other CD labels and together this CD collection is the most extensive available of quartet literature in the last 40 years. To name just a few, Berio, Cage, Carter, Lachenmann, Ligeti, Nono, Rihm, the complete chamber music of Xenakis and Stockhausen's infamous Helicopter Quartet. Some of the most recent releases are with the French company Aeon and include profiles of Harvey, Dusapin, Birtwistle and Gerhard. For 2014, Ferneyhough's complete quartets and trios will also be released on this label.

Over the past 30 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). In 2004 they were awarded 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.

The complete archive of the Arditti quartet is housed in the Sacher Foundation in Basle, Switzerland.

Booklet for Gifts and Greetings