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Alban Berg Quartet

Biography

Günter Pichler - violin
Gerhard Schulz - violin
Thomas Kakuska - viola
Valentin Erben - violoncello

For over 30 years the Alban Berg Quartet has performed regularly in music capitals and major festivals throughout the world. They have their own concert series at the Vienna Konzerthaus (where they made their debut in 1971 and where they are now Honorary Members), at the South Bank Centre in London (where they are Associate Artists), at the Zurich Opera, the Theatre des Champs-Elysées in Paris, the Cologne Philharmonie and the Alte Oper Frankfurt.

Since they were founded the Alban Berg Quartet have been prolific recording artists and have received over 30 major international awards, including the Grand Prix du Disque, the Deutsche Schallplattenpreis, the Edison Prize, the first International Classical Music Award, the Japan Grand Prix and the Gramophone Magazine Award. Many of these recordings are regarded as definitive by public and critics alike.

Among their many recording projects have been the complete quartets by Beethoven, Brahms, Berg, Webern and Bartok, the complete late Mozart and late Schubert quartets, Haydn, Dvorak, Schumann, Ravel, Debussy, Stravinsky, von Einem and Haubenstock-Ramati, as well as live recordings from the Carnegie Hall, New York, the Opera Comique in Paris, the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London and particularly from the Konzerthaus in Vienna. Following their original Beethoven cycle recorded in the studio some years ago, the live recording of their Beethoven cycle at the Konzerthaus during the Vienna Festival in 1989 has now been released on CD and video. The Quartet has also made live recordings of works by Janacek, Lutoslawski, Berio, Schnittke, Urbanner and Rihm (several of which are dedicated to the Alban Berg Quartet), as well as the Dvorak Piano Quintet (with Rudolf Buchbinder), Schubert’s late quartets, Brahms’ Clarinet Quintet and String Quintet op.111, Mozart’s Piano Quartet in E flat major and the Piano Quintet K414 with Alfred Brendel, Dvorak’s quartets op.51 and op.106, and most recently, also live, Mendelssohn’s Quartets op.12 and op.13.

Press reviews for the Alban Berg Quartet confirm their reputation: "Certainly one of the greatest ensembles in chamber music" (France Soir, Paris), "Stunning perfection" (Washington Post), "One of the great ensembles of our time" (San Francisco Chronicle), "A wonder by the name of the Alban Berg Quartet" (Presse, Vienna), "Few if any quartets can match their strength and assurance in the Viennese classics and romantics" (Times), "The Alban Berg Quartet have achieved legendary standards in chamber music playing" (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung), "The Alban Berg Quartet overwhelms with Beethoven" (J. Kaiser, Süddeutsche Zeitung).

More important to the quartet than the superlative praise in the press and the enthusiasm of the public is their self-appointed mission of giving the most harmonious interpretation of the works they perform and of extending their repertoire from the classical to the avant-garde; the name "Alban Berg" symbolizes this commitment.

The Alban Berg Quartet also take responsibility for the training of young musicians; they are all professors at the Wiener Hochschule für Musik (Vienna School of Music) and since 1993 also at the Musikhochschule in Cologne as successors of the Amadeus Quartet, and are as dedicated to this task as they are to their own musical work and performance.

April 2002/545 words

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