Arditti Quartet

For the first time, the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize is not being awarded to an individual, but to a collective of artists. This is not to speak against the individual, who is typically center of our musical events and artistic experiences, but rather to confirm the very idea that is essential to these events and experiences—that creative collaboration through ensemble-playing is vital to music itself.

Without the culture of ensembles, most musical exposure would be unimaginable or, at best, barely conceivable. However, every significant artistic community in our society—and in this, we remain the descendants of the “Sturm und Drang” movement and disciples of Nietzsche—stands in the shadow of the exceptional individual, the extraordinary person for whom both the Enlightenment and Romanticism narrowed the term “genius,” while our far weaker anglophile paradigm borrowed the term “star.” Of course, no ensemble can thrive without the artistic quality and competence of its individual members; indeed, the Arditti String Quartet would be inconceivable without the contributions of its four artists. Yet, here again, the non-mathematical truth holds: the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.