Michael Nyman - String Quartet No. 1 (1985) - Arditti Quartet - 12/04/85

Michael Nyman's String Quartet No. 1 was commissioned and premiered by the Arditti Quartet in 1985. The work is in one continuous movement divided into lettered sections. Most of the musical material is based on 16th century English composer John Bull's Walsingham Variations for solo keyboard, as well as the fourth movement from Arnold Schoenberg's String Quartet No. 2. Nyman had originally intended to write a work stylistically spanning the whole string quartet repertoire, but eventually settled on the idea of combining and contrasting two preexisting musical compositions - one from before tonality had been codified and one written by one of the pioneers of atonality. Arditti Quartet: Irvine Arditti - first violin Alexander Balanescu - second violin Levine Andrade - viola Rohan de Saram - cello Recorded live at the Centre Pompidou in Paris on December 4th 1985.