String Quartet No. 5 (1995) | Compositions

Dedication: For the Arditti Quartet
Buy Score: Hendon Music (Boosey & Hawkes)
Manuscripts: Paul Sacher Stiftung

Premiere: Sep 19, 1995/ Arditti Quartet/ De Singel, Antwerp

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String Quartet No. 5 clip

One of the fascinations of attending rehearsals of chamber music, when excellent players try out fragments of what they later will play in the ensemble, then play it, and then stop abruptly to discuss how to improve, is that this pattern is so similar to our inner experience of forming, ordering, focussing, and bringing to fruition — and then dismissing — our feelings and ideas. These patterns of human behavior form the basis of the 5th String Quartet. Its introduction presents the players, one by one, trying out fragments of later passages from one of the six short, contrasting ensemble movements, at the same time maintaining a dialogue with each other. Between each of the movements the players discuss in different ways what has been played and what will be played.

In this score the matter of human cooperation with its many aspects of feeling and thought was a very important consideration.

String Quartet No.5 was composed during the winter and spring of 1995 in New York and Southbury, Connecticut, and was commissioned for the Arditti Quartet by Antwerp, City of Culture, 1993; Wittener Tage für Neue Musik; Festival d’Automne à Paris; and Lincoln Center, New York.

– Elliott Carter

Upcoming Performances (1)

JACK Quartet. Photo by Beowulf Sheehan.

Mar 22, 2025 3:00 pm

JACK Quartet: Carter, Eduardo Aguilar and Helmut Lachenmann

JACK Quartet

Wigmore Hall, London, United Kingdom/More Info

Video (2)

Recordings (4)

The Juilliard String Quartet: Elliott Carter: The Five String Quartets
Sony 8843-03383-2 (2014)
Juilliard String Quartet: Robert Mann, violin; Joel Smirnoff, violin; Samuel Rhodes, viola; Joel Krosnick, cello; Joseph Lin, violin; Ronald Copes, violin
Elliott Carter: The Complete String Quartets; 100th Anniversary Release
Naxos 8.503225 (2010)
Pacifica Quartet: Simin Ganatra, violin I; Sibbi Bernhardsson, violin II; Masumi Per Rostad, viola; Brandon Vamos, cello
Pacifica Quartet: Elliott Carter: String Quartets Nos. 1 & 5
Naxos 8.559362 (2008)
Pacifica Quartet: Simin Ganatra, violin; Sibbi Bernhardsson, violin; Masumi Per Rostad, viola; Brandon Vamos, cello
Ursula Oppens; Arditti String Quartet: Elliott Carter: Chamber Music
Auvidis Montaigne MO 782091 (1998)
Ursula Oppens, piano | Arditti Quartet: Irvine Arditti, violin; Graeme Jennings, violin; Garth Knox, viola; Rohan De Saram, cello