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52-517: The Kronos Quartet is an American string quartet based in San Francisco. It has been in existence with a rotating membership of musicians for 50 years. The quartet covers a very broad range of musical genres, including contemporary classical music . More than 1,000 works have been written for it . The quartet was founded by violinist David Harrington in Seattle , Washington . Its first performance

104-536: A Pack of Hungry Cannibals", and Bob Dylan 's " Don't Think Twice, It's All Right ". Kronos has also worked with a variety of global musicians, including Bollywood playback singer Asha Bhosle ; Mexican-American painter Gronk ; American soprano Dawn Upshaw ; jazz composer/performer Pat Metheny ; Mexican rockers Café Tacuba ; Azerbaijani mugam singer Alim Qasimov ; and the Romanian gypsy band Taraf de Haïdouks among others. Kronos has performed live with

156-584: A diversity of countries— Kaija Saariaho from Finland, Pēteris Vasks from Latvia, Franghiz Ali-Zadeh from Azerbaijan, Homayun Sakhi from Afghanistan, Hamza El Din from Egypt , Victoria Vita Polevá from Ukraine and Fernando Otero , Astor Piazzolla , and Osvaldo Golijov from Argentina. Some of Kronos's string-quartet arrangements were published in 2007. I've always wanted the string quartet to be vital, and energetic, and alive, and cool, and not afraid to kick ass and be absolutely beautiful and ugly if it has to be. But it has to be expressive of life. To tell

208-546: A location (e.g. the Budapest Quartet ). Established quartets may undergo changes in membership whilst retaining their original name. Franghiz Ali-Zadeh Franghiz Ali Aga Kïzï Ali-Zadeh (born 28 May 1947) is an Azerbaijani composer and pianist of contemporary classical music . Her music synthesizes Western classical modernist techniques with the Azerbaijani mugham art music. Among her better known works are

260-584: A number of quartets: "Beethoven in particular is credited with developing the genre in an experimental and dynamic fashion, especially in his later series of quartets written in the 1820s up until his death. Their forms and ideas inspired and continue to inspire musicians and composers, such as Wagner and Bartók ." Schubert's last musical wish was to hear Beethoven's Quartet in C ♯ minor, Op. 131 , which he heard on 14 November 1828, just five days before his death. Upon listening to an earlier performance of this quartet, Schubert had remarked, "After this, what

312-500: A number of them. Many Romantic and early-twentieth-century composers composed string quartets, including Mendelssohn , Schumann , Brahms , Dvořák , Janáček , and Debussy . There was a slight lull in string quartet composition later in the 19th century, but it received a resurgence in the 20th century, with the Second Viennese School , Bartók , Shostakovich , Babbitt , and Carter producing highly regarded examples of

364-417: A part. The British musicologist David Wyn Jones cites the widespread practice of four players, one to a part, playing works written for string orchestra , such as divertimenti and serenades , there being no separate (fifth) contrabass part in string scoring before the 19th century. However, these composers showed no interest in exploring the development of the string quartet as a medium. The origins of

416-435: A perspective] is the notion that Haydn "invented" the string quartet... Although he may still be considered the 'father' of the 'Classical' string quartet, he is not the creator of the sting quartet genre itself... This old and otiose myth not only misrepresents the achievements of other excellent composers, but also distorts the character and qualities of Haydn's opp. 1, 2 and 9". The musicologist Cliff Eisen contextualizes

468-690: A piece named after Kronos, "The Kronos Wartet", as a part of the soundtrack to Star Trek Into Darkness for a scene that takes place on the fictional planet "Kronos". (also spelled " Qo'noS "). Over 1,000 pieces have been created for the Kronos Quartet, which has a long history of commissioning new works. It has worked with many minimalist composers, including John Adams , Arvo Pärt , George Crumb , Henryk Górecki , Steve Reich , John Luther Adams , Roberto Paci Dalò , Philip Glass , Terry Riley , Peter Sculthorpe and Kevin Volans ; collaborators hail from

520-696: A rendition of the track "Another Version of the Truth"". The group performed Lee Brooks 's score for the short film 2081 , based on the Kurt Vonnegut short story " Harrison Bergeron ". In 2009, Kronos contributed an acoustic version of Blind Willie Johnson 's "Dark Was the Night" for the AIDS benefit album Dark Was the Night produced by the Red Hot Organization . In 2017, the quartet performed as featured artists on

572-546: A similar way to an instrumental soloist or an orchestra . The early history of the string quartet is in many ways the history of the development of the genre by the Austrian composer Joseph Haydn . There had been examples of divertimenti for two solo violins, viola and cello by the Viennese composers Georg Christoph Wagenseil and Ignaz Holzbauer ; and there had long been a tradition of performing orchestral works one instrument to

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624-499: A third soloist; and moreover it became common to omit the keyboard part, letting the cello support the bass line alone. Thus when Alessandro Scarlatti wrote a set of six works entitled Sonata à Quattro per due Violini, Violetta [viola], e Violoncello senza Cembalo (Sonata for four instruments: two violins, viola, and cello without harpsichord), this was a natural evolution from the existing tradition. The musicologist Hartmut Schick has suggested that Franz Xaver Richter invented

676-464: A total of five string quartets; he won Pulitzer Prizes for two of them: No. 2 and No. 3 . Three important string quartets were written by Helmut Lachenmann . The late 20th century also saw the string quartet expand in various ways: Morton Feldman's vast Second String Quartet is one of the longest ever written, and Karlheinz Stockhausen's Helikopter-Streichquartett is to be performed by the four musicians in four helicopters. Quartets written during

728-488: A traditional string instrument of Central Asia . Early in her childhood, Ali-Zadeh developed an interest in music and at age five her family bought a piano. She began composition a few years later, studying the discipline under Adila Huseinzade. From 1954 to 1965 Ali-Zadeh attended Azerbaijan State Conservatory 's youth music school; later she studied at the conservatory in composition under Gara Garayev (graduated 1972) and piano under Ulfan Khalilov (graduated 1970). At

780-537: Is impossible to make music if you ignore your feelings and just play the notes you see printed on a score. Music is something you must feel deeply. Having the ability to really feel music is like possessing a secret—a secret emotion, a secret understanding, a secret of music" – Ali-Zadeh She is best known for her works that combine the musical tradition of the Azerbaijani mugham and 20th century Western compositional techniques, especially those of Arnold Schoenberg and Gara Garayev . This synthesis-style began in

832-646: Is left for us to write?" Wagner, when reflecting on Op. 131's first movement, said that it "reveals the most melancholy sentiment expressed in music". Of the late quartets , Beethoven cited his own favorite as Op. 131 , which he saw as his most perfect single work. Mendelssohn 's six string quartets span the full range of his career, from 1828 to 1847; Schumann 's three string quartets were all written in 1842 and dedicated to Mendelssohn, whose quartets Schumann had been studying in preparation, along with those of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. Several Romantic-era composers wrote only one quartet, while Dvořák wrote 14. In

884-518: The People's Artiste of Azerbaijan (2008). Since 2008, she has been a UNESCO Artist for Peace , particularly in service of the organization's Children's education program. She is also the artistic director of the International World of Mugham Festival . Her works have been performed by Yo-Yo Ma and Hilary Hahn , among others. The Kronos Quartet in particular have championed her music. "It

936-456: The classical period usually had four movements, with a structure similar to that of a symphony : The positions of the slow movement and third movement are flexible. For example, in Mozart's six quartets dedicated to Haydn , three have a minuet followed by a slow movement and three have the slow movement before the minuet. Substantial modifications to the typical structure were already present by

988-677: The former USSR and was elected as a member of the Schoenberg Institute of Los Angeles in 1988. She moved to Turkey in 1992. In the late 1990s she moved to Berlin, Germany, but now spends her time between there and Baku. Ali-Zadeh became the first women composer-in-residence of the Lucerne Festival in August 1999. She was also composer-in-residence for the Beethoven Orchester of Bonn in both 2001 and 2003. Among her awards are

1040-456: The "classical" string quartet around 1757, but the consensus amongst most authorities is that Haydn is responsible for the genre in its currently accepted form. The string quartet enjoyed no recognized status as an ensemble in the way that two violins with basso continuo – the so-called ' trio sonata ' – had for more than a hundred years. Even the composition of Haydn's earliest string quartets owed more to chance than artistic imperative. During

1092-525: The 1750s, when the young composer was still working mainly as a teacher and violinist in Vienna, he would occasionally be invited to spend time at the nearby castle at Weinzierl of the music-loving Austrian nobleman Karl Joseph Weber, Edler von Fürnberg. There he would play chamber music in an ad hoc ensemble consisting of Fürnberg's steward, a priest, and a local cellist, and when the Baron asked for some new music for

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1144-656: The Kronos Quartet has been called "probably the most famous ' new music ' group in the world" and been praised in philosophical studies of music for the inclusiveness of its repertoire. By the time the quartet celebrated its 25th anniversary in 1999, it had a repertoire of over 600 works, including 400 quartets written for it, more than 3,000 performances, seven first-prize ASCAP awards, Edison Awards in classical and popular music, and had more than 1.5 million record sales. When Kronos turned 30, in 2003, it decided to commission new pieces from composers under age 30, in hopes of encouraging talented young composers. The program, called

1196-507: The Op. 20 quartets as follows: "Haydn's quartets of the late 1760s and early 1770s [opp. 9, 17, and 20] are high points in the early history of the quartet. Characterized by a wide range of textures, frequent asymmetries and theatrical gestures...these quartets established the genre's four-movement form, its larger dimensions, and ...its greater aesthetic pretensions and expressive range." That Haydn's string quartets were already "classics" that defined

1248-708: The Under 30 Project, is now run in cooperation with Carnegie Hall , Cal Performances at the University of California, Berkeley , and the Montalvo Arts Center . The first recipient was Alexandra du Bois (at the time a student at Indiana University , later a Juilliard School graduate), followed by Felipe Perez Santiago (born in Mexico in 1973), and Dan Visconti (born in Illinois in 1982); in 2007, Israeli composer Aviya Kopelman became

1300-578: The chamber piece Gabil Sajahy (1979) for cello and piano, as well as the ballet Empty Cradle (1993); she has also written instrumental, vocal and film music. Franghiz Ali Aga Kïzï Ali-Zadeh was born on 28 May 1947 in Baku , then in the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic of the USSR. Although her family was not particularly musical, her father—an oil engineer—occasionally played the tar ,

1352-512: The conservatory from 1996 onwards. Through her piano performances, Ali-Zadeh has promoted the music of various contemporary classical composers , particularly Russians. Throughout the 1960s and 70s, she gave the Azerbaijani premieres of compositions by Russian-Soviet composers such as Edison Denisov , Sofia Gubaidulina and Alfred Schnittke , as well as Europeans such as Alban Berg , John Cage , George Crumb , Olivier Messiaen and Arnold Schoenberg . Ali-Zadeh has frequent music festivals of

1404-507: The conservatory, she became an assistant to Karayev (1970–76) and was later in postgraduate track with him (1974–76). She was awarded the Composers Union of Azerbaijan award in 1980. After becoming an assistant professor there (1976–89), Ali-Zadeh wrote her doctoral dissertation , "Orchestration in Works by Azerbaijani Composers" (1989) for a Doctor of Music . She became a full professor of

1456-616: The difference between one masterpiece and the next." The musicologist Roger Hickman has however demurred from this consensus view. He notes a change in string quartet writing towards the end of the 1760s, featuring characteristics which are today thought of as essential to the genre – scoring for two violins, viola and cello, solo passages, and absence of actual or potential basso continuo accompaniment. Noting that at this time other composers than Haydn were writing works conforming to these 'modern' criteria, and that Haydn's earlier quartets did not meet them, he suggests that "one casualty [of such

1508-413: The early "quartets" are actually symphonies missing their wind parts. They have five movements and take the form: fast movement, minuet and trio I, slow movement, minuet and trio II, and fast finale . As Ludwig Finscher notes, they draw stylistically on the Austrian divertimento tradition. After these early efforts, Haydn did not return to the string quartet for several years, but when he did so, it

1560-455: The finales of nos. 2, 5 and 6. After Op. 20, it becomes harder to point to similar major jumps in the string quartet's development in Haydn's hands, though not due to any lack of invention or application on the composer's part. As Donald Tovey put it: "with Op. 20 the historical development of Haydn's quartets reaches its goal; and further progress is not progress in any historical sense, but simply

1612-409: The first movement in the 2020 documentary Zappa , directed by Alex Winter. Kronos's artistic director, founder, and violinist David Harrington is also interviewed in the film. On the 1998 Dave Matthews Band album Before These Crowded Streets , Kronos Quartet performed on the tracks "Halloween" and "The Stone". It also recorded for the 2007 Nine Inch Nails remix album, Year Zero Remixed doing

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1664-516: The fourth. To celebrate its 40th year, the Kronos Quartet returned to Seattle, the city in which it first played, and worked in collaboration with Seattle's Degenerate Art Ensemble to create a piece incorporating music, dance and video. It celebrated its 40th anniversary with a sold-out performance at Zellerbach Hall , UC Berkeley , in December 2013. The same year, Michael Giacchino , a soundtrack composer who often names his pieces with puns, published

1716-455: The genre by 1801 can be judged by Ignaz Pleyel 's publication in Paris of a "complete" series that year, and the quartet's evolution as vehicle for public performance can be judged by Pleyel's ten-volume set of miniature scores intended for hearers rather than players – early examples of this genre of music publishing . Since Haydn's day, the string quartet has been prestigious and considered one of

1768-561: The genre, and it remains an important and refined musical form. The standard structure for a string quartet as established in the Classical era is four movements , with the first movement in sonata form , allegro, in the tonic key; a slow movement in a related key and a minuet and trio follow; and the fourth movement is often in rondo form or sonata rondo form , in the tonic key. Some string quartet ensembles play together for many years and become established and promoted as an entity in

1820-559: The genre. During his tenure as Master of the Queen's Music , Peter Maxwell Davies produced a set of ten entitled the Naxos Quartets (to a commission from Naxos Records ) from 2001 to 2007. Margaret Jones Wiles composed over 50 string quartets. David Matthews has written eleven, and Robin Holloway both five quartets and six "quartettini". Over nearly five decades, Elliott Carter wrote

1872-430: The group to play, Haydn's first string quartets were born. It is not clear whether any of these works ended up in the two sets published in the mid-1760s and known as Haydn's Opp. 1 and 2 ('Op. 0' is a quartet included in some early editions of Op. 1, and only rediscovered in the 1930s), but it seems reasonable to assume that they were at least similar in character. Haydn's early biographer Georg August Griesinger tells

1924-461: The modern era, the string quartet played a key role in the development of Schoenberg (who added a soprano in his String Quartet No. 2 ), Bartók , and Shostakovich especially. After the Second World War , some composers, such as Messiaen questioned the relevance of the string quartet and avoided writing them. However, from the 1960s onwards, many composers have shown a renewed interest in

1976-543: The poet Allen Ginsberg , Astor Piazzolla , The National , the Modern Jazz Quartet , Tom Waits , David Bowie , Paul McCartney and Björk , and has recorded with Nelly Furtado , Rokia Traoré , Joan Armatrading , Brazilian electronica artist Amon Tobin , Texas yodeler Don Walser , Faith No More , Tiger Lillies and David Grisman . In 1984, Frank Zappa wrote "None of the Above" for Kronos, of which it performs

2028-454: The progressive aims of the Op. 20 set of 1772, in particular, makes them the first major peak in the history of the string quartet. Certainly they offered to their own time state-of-the art models to follow for the best part of a decade; the teenage Mozart , in his early quartets, was among the composers moved to imitate many of their characteristics, right down to the vital fugues with which Haydn sought to bring greater architectural weight to

2080-564: The pursuit of the more advanced quartet style found in the eighteen works published in the early 1770s as Opp. 9, 17, and 20 . These are written in a form that became established as standard both for Haydn and for other composers. Clearly composed as sets, these quartets feature a four-movement layout having broadly conceived, moderately paced first movements and, in increasing measure, a democratic and conversational interplay of parts, close-knit thematic development, and skilful though often restrained use of counterpoint. The convincing realizations of

2132-496: The songs "Lost Light" and "Journey" on the soundtrack to the videogame Destiny 2 . Le Diapason d'Or de Mai Musical America Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music Performance Grammy Award for Best Small Ensemble Performance Grammy Award for Best Engineered Album, Classical National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences Polar Music Prize WOMEX Awards Edison Classical Music Awards (Edison Klassiek) String quartet The string quartet

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2184-905: The story thus: The following purely chance circumstance had led him to try his luck at the composition of quartets. A Baron Fürnberg had a place in Weinzierl , several stages from Vienna, and he invited from time to time his pastor, his manager, Haydn, and Albrechtsberger (a brother of the celebrated contrapuntist Albrechtsberger ) in order to have a little music. Fürnberg requested Haydn to compose something that could be performed by these four amateurs. Haydn, then eighteen years old [ sic ], took up this proposal, and so originated his first quartet which, immediately it appeared, received such general approval that Haydn took courage to work further in this form. Haydn went on to write nine other quartets around this time. These works were published as his Op. 1 and Op. 2; one quartet went unpublished, and some of

2236-493: The story with grace and humor and depth. And to tell the whole story, if possible. —David Harrington Kronos covers a very broad range of musical genres : Mexican folk , experimental , pre-classical early music , movie soundtracks ( Requiem for a Dream , Heat , The Fountain ), jazz and tango . Kronos has also recorded adaptations of Jimi Hendrix 's " Purple Haze ", Sigur Rós 's "Flugufrelsarinn", Television 's " Marquee Moon ", Raymond Scott 's "Dinner Music for

2288-525: The string quartet can be further traced back to the Baroque trio sonata , in which two solo instruments performed with a continuo section consisting of a bass instrument (such as the cello) and keyboard . A very early example is a four-part sonata for string ensemble by the Italian composer Gregorio Allegri that might be considered an important prototype. By the early 18th century, composers were often adding

2340-473: The string quartet: Further expansions have also produced works such as the String octet by Mendelssohn , consisting of the equivalent of two string quartets. Notably, Schoenberg included a soprano in the last two movements of his second string quartet , composed in 1908. Adding a voice has since been done by Milhaud , Ginastera , Ferneyhough , Davies , İlhan Mimaroğlu and many others. Another variation on

2392-449: The time of Beethoven's late quartets, and despite some notable examples to the contrary, composers writing in the twentieth century increasingly abandoned this structure. Bartók's fourth and fifth string quartets, written in the 1930s, are five-movement works, symmetrical around a central movement. Shostakovich's final quartet , written in the 1970s, comprises six slow movements. Many other chamber groups can be seen as modifications of

2444-536: The traditional string quartet is the electric string quartet with players performing on electric instruments . Notable works for string quartet include: Whereas individual string players often group together to make ad hoc string quartets, others continue to play together for many years in ensembles which may be named after the first violinist (e.g. the Takács Quartet ), a composer (e.g. the Borodin Quartet ) or

2496-464: The true tests of a composer's art. This may be partly because the palette of sound is more restricted than with orchestral music, forcing the music to stand more on its own rather than relying on tonal color ; or from the inherently contrapuntal tendency in music written for four equal instruments. Quartet composition flourished in the Classical era. Mozart , Beethoven and Schubert each composed

2548-468: Was developed into its present form by the Austrian composer Joseph Haydn , whose works in the 1750s established the ensemble as a group of four more-or-less equal partners. Since that time, the string quartet has been considered a prestigious form; writing for four instruments with broadly similar characteristics both constrains and tests a composer. String quartet composition flourished in the Classical era , and Mozart , Beethoven and Schubert each wrote

2600-507: Was in November 1973. Since 1978, the quartet has been based in San Francisco , California . The longest-running combination of performers (from 1978 to 1999) had Harrington and John Sherba on violin , Hank Dutt on viola , and Joan Jeanrenaud on cello . In 1999, Jeanrenaud left Kronos because she was "eager for something new"; she was replaced by Jennifer Culp, who, in turn, left in 2005 and

2652-458: Was replaced by Jeffrey Zeigler. In June 2013, Zeigler was replaced by Sunny Yang. In February 2023, cellist and composer Paul Wiancko became the quartet's newest cellist. In March 2024, Kronos Quartet announced that Sherba and Dutt will retire in June of that year, being replaced by violinist Gabriela Díaz and violist Ayane Kosaza. With over 40 studio albums to its credit and having performed worldwide,

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2704-491: Was to make a significant step in the genre's development. The intervening years saw Haydn begin his employment as Kapellmeister to the Esterházy princes, for whom he was required to compose numerous symphonies and dozens of trios for violin, viola, and the bass instrument called the baryton (played by Prince Nikolaus Esterházy himself). The opportunities for experiment which both these genres offered Haydn perhaps helped him in

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