The Alban Berg Quartett was a string quartet founded in Vienna, Austria in 1970, named after Alban Berg. It was widely considered one of the finest ensembles of its time.[1]
Career
The Quartet's repertoire was centered around the Viennese classics, but spanned works from Early Classicism, Romanticism, to the Second Viennese School (Berg, Schoenberg, Webern), Bartók and embraced many contemporary composers.[2]Following an invitation of Walter Levin (LaSalle Quartet) the ABQ studied intensively for the better part of a year in the USA. The foci of their activities in Europe became annual concert cycles at the Wiener Konzerthaus, at Londons Royal Festival Hall, and Frankfurt (Alte Oper), as well as regular concerts at most major halls and venues around the world (among them La Scala, Concertgebow Amsterdam, Berliner Philharmonie, Théâtre des Champs Elysées, the Royal Festival Hall, Carnegie Hall, Teatro Colón, Suntory Hall, etc.) 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.
Recording
Recordings were an important part of the work of the Alban Berg Quartet. Among the most famous recordings projects are the complete string quartets by Beethoven (EMI, which has sold more than a million copies), Brahms (Teldec and EMI), the late Mozart Quartets (Teldec) and late Schubert, but their repertoire on disc stretched further to Schumann, Janácek, Stravinsky, Berg, Webern, Bartók, von Einem, Lutosławski, Rihm, Berio to Schnittke and beyond. Many of the latter, contemporary, composers wrote works specially dedicated to the ABQ. The group has enjoyed the highest accolades from the international press and was considered one of the great ensembles of its time by critics around the world. Following their original Beethoven cycle recorded in the studio in the late 70s, early 80s, the group went on to release live recordings of their Beethoven cycle at the Konzerthaus during the Vienna Festival in 1989 on CD, video, and DVD.[3] The Alban Berg Quartet recorded chamber music with some of the finest soloists of their time, including the Piano Quintets of Robert Schumann (with Philippe Entremont), Schubert and Brahms (with Elisabeth Leonskaja)and Dvoràk (with Rudolf Buchbinder), the Brahms Clarinet Quintet (with Sabine Meyer), and the Mozart Piano Quartets and the Piano Quintet KV 414 (with Alfred Brendel). For their recordings, the ABQ received more than 30 international awards, among them the (Grand Prix du Disque, the Deutscher Schallplattenpreis, the Japanese Grand Prix), the Edison Award
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