Paris, Darmstadt, New York: The Beginnings of the ‘New Music’ Quartet

Abstract

As a European musical avant-garde starts to emerge around 1950, two locations assume a particular importance. One is Paris, where a group of radical young composers emerges around Messiaen, and Pierre Schaeffer founds musique concrète. The other is the town of Darmstadt, where an annual New Music Summer School (Ferienkurse für neue Musik) soon starts to attract young avant-gardists from all over Europe. Although this avant-garde broadly rejects all previous forms and conventions, one genre seems to retain its respect: the string quartet. Two early exemplars of the ‘new music string quartet’, by Cage and Boulez, were completed in Paris, and many of their successors were either premiered at the Darmstadt courses, or at least composed by Darmstadt habitués. The most significant of these, nearly all characterised by a strong inclination to rigorous constructivism, are discussed here. Composers featured include Berio, Boulez, Cage, Evangelisti, Koenig, Maderna, and Pousseur.