Ferneyhough-The Arditti Quartet Edition

Brian Ferneyhough - The Arditti Quartet Edition

CD released in 1989

Arditti Quartet:

Irvine Arditti - violin
David Alberman - violin
Levine Andrade - viola
Rohan de Saram - cello

One of the most important and fascinating personalities of today's music, Brian Ferneyhough is also one of the most difficult to define. His earliest compositions go back to 1968. In 1974 he suddenly came into full view at the Royan Festival, then directed by Harry Halbreich. Prior to that time the complexity of his thought and the extreme difficulty of his works seemed to prevent their wider circulation. From 1974 onwards, this situation was completely reversed and, owing to a greater number of performances, not least by the Arditti String Quartet, who enjoy a close relationship with the composer, Brian Ferneyhough's stature now places him among the most recognized and influential composers of his time.

Brian Ferneyhough defines himself as a "sceptical mystic" in search of "the positive nature of doubt". He creates a fundamentally original music, replete with polyphonic potentials and rich harmonic textures. It often demonstrates a powerful architectonic concern and an acute sense of the large form. His strictly organised writing confronts the material's specific and pragmatic interconnections with the performer's "creative neurosis". This is a music of discontinuous sound and discourse, with complex combinations and hierarchies. As the information content is so extraordinarily dense it can at times be very demanding for the listener, but the aesthetics and dialectics reflect an art of extreme rigour and genuine grandeur.
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The Arditti Quartet was formed in 1974, when its original players Irvine Arditti and Levine Andrade were studying at the Royal Academy of Music, London. They were joined in 1977 by Rohan de Saran and in 1986 by David Alberman.

They specialise in the performance of contemporary music and music of this century comprising a vast and varied selection of works in all styles, and consider it important to work with the composers whose music they play. Part of their objective is to encourage young composers to write for their medium. In the course of one season they have performed as many as 50 new pieces. The 1988/1989 season included new works from Georges Aperghis, Philippe Boesmans, Sylvano Bussotti, John Cage, Elliott Carter, Pascal Dusapin, Brian Ferneyhough, Sofia Gubadulina, Maurizio Kagel, Helmut Lachenmann, Conlon Nancarrow, Luigi Nono, Krysztof Penderecki, Henri Pousseur, Wolfgang Rihm and Hans-Jurgen von Bose.

Since 1982 they have been resident string tutors in the Darmstadt Summer Academy for New Music, as well as having given master classes worldwide.

This record is part of a series played by the Arditti Quartet for Disques Montaigne. This series consists of the classics of the XXth century to include music of the 2nd Viennese School and Bartok as well as a selection of recent repertoire. (Patrick Szersnovicz; translated by A. A. Hebbachi)

Tracklisting:

1. Deuxieme Quatuor a cordes {9:57}

2. Adagissimo pour quatuor a cordes {1:54}

3. Troisieme Quatuor a cordes: 1er mvt {9:51}

4. Troiseme Quatuor a cordes: 2e mvt {7:00}

5. Sonates pour quatuor a cordes {41:03}

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