Australian Music Centre | Breaking sound barriers

Event Details

The Arditti Quartet has a world-wide reputation for performances of contemporary music. Several hundred works have been written for the ensemble and they have presented world premieres of quartets by composers such as Birtwistle, Cage, Carter, Ferneyhough, Gubaidulina, Harvey, Hosokawa, Kagel, Kurtag, Lachenmann, Ligeti, Scelsi, Stockhausen and Xenakis. The quartet was established by first violinist Irvine Arditti in 1974. The players’ commitment to educational work is indicated by their masterclasses and workshops for young performers and composers all over the world.

Brett Dean wrote Eclipse as a response to the ‘Tampa crisis’. Giacinto Scelsi’s last Quartet is seven minutes long yet speaks of a life-time: the work staggers into our perception as a series of painful, tripping lunges. The emotional climate becomes desperate just before the end when the work suddenly drifts into a delirium and, eventually, complete unconsciousness. Ligeti’s elegant second Quartet is pure 1960s Modernism with extreme registers juxtaposed and a combination of roaring unisons and finely wrought counterpoint, drifting before the listener like aural gossamer. Alban Berg’s iconic and monumental Lyric Suite is a masterpiece of glowing revelation.

Featured non-Australian music: Scelsi, Ligeti, Berg

Further information for this event is available online at the event's website

Featured Australian Works

Featured artists

• Performer Arditti Quartet