Alban Berg Quartett
The Alban Berg Quartett was a string quartet founded in Vienna, named after the composer Alban Berg. Active from 1970 to 2008, the group included first violinist Günter Pichler and cellist Valentin Erben, while the second violinist was briefly Klaus Maetzl and Gerhard Schulz from then onwards. The violist changed the most, Hatto Beyerle, Thomas Kakuska and Isabel Charisius.
History
The Berg Quartet was founded in 1970 by four young professors of the Vienna Academy of Music, and made its debut in the Vienna Konzerthaus in autumn 1971. The widow of the composer Alban Berg, Helene, attended an early private concert after which she gave her consent for the quartet to use her husband's name.The Quartet's repertoire was centered on the Viennese classics, but with a serious emphasis on 20th-century classical music. It was the stated goal of the quartet to include at least one modern work in each performance. Their repertoire spanned from Early Classicism, Romanticism, to the Second Viennese School, Béla Bartók and embraced many contemporary composers. This took expression not the least in personal statements by composers like Witold Lutosławski and Luciano Berio, of whom the former said: "Personally I am indebted to the Alban Berg Quartet for an unforgettable event. Last year in Vienna, they played my quartet in a way such as will never be likely equaled."
Following an invitation of Walter Levin the ABQ studied intensively for the better part of a year in the USA. The focus of their activities in Europe became annual concert cycles at the Wiener Konzerthaus, at London's Queen Elizabeth Hall, the Frankfurt Alte Oper, the Théâtre des Champs Elysées in Paris, the Philharmonic Hall in Cologne, the Zurich Opera, as well as regular concerts at most major halls and venues around the world and all the major music festivals such as the Berliner Festwochen, the Edinburgh Festival, IRCAM in the Pompidou Centre, the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, and the Salzburg Festival. The ABQ is an Honorary Member of the Wiener Konzerthaus and Associate Artist of the Royal Festival Hall London.
From 1993 until 2012, the members of the Alban Berg Quartet were lecturing at the Cologne Conservatory in succession of the Amadeus Quartet. Quartets who studied with the Alban Berg Quartet include the Cuarteto Casals, the Schumann Quartett, the Amber Quartet, the Fauré Quartet, the Aviv Quartet, the, the Amaryllis Quartet, and in particular the Belcea Quartet, and the Artemis Quartet.
The composers that wrote string quartets for the Alban Berg Quartet include, in chronological order,, Erich Urbanner, Roman Haubenstock-Ramati, Gottfried von Einem, Wolfgang Rihm, Alfred Schnittke, Zbigniew Bargielski, Luciano Berio, and Kurt Schwertsik.
In 2005, Thomas Kakuska died of cancer. In accordance with his wish, the ABQ continued performing with Isabel Charisius, a student of his. But as cellist Valentin Erben said, "There was a big rupture in our hearts" and the quartet retired in 2008. The concert in memoriam Thomas Kakuska in the Wiener Konzerthaus' Großer Saal featured a who's-who of classical music, including an orchestra of friends and students of the quartet. Among them were Angelika Kirchschlager, Elisabeth Leonskaja, Irvine Arditti, Magdalena Kožená, Thomas Quasthoff, Helmut Deutsch, Alois Posch, Heinrich Schiff, and Sir Simon Rattle; the orchestra was conducted by Claudio Abbado. After a worldwide farewell tour in July 2008, the ABQ ended its career.