"Most transcriptions are very good; moreover, most people don't like to hear a piano play automatically, they want more activity." Conlon Nancarrow.

Conlon Nancarrow is one of the most original figures in the history of music. In the late 1940s, he turned to the instrument that later became inseparable from his name: the player piano. In 1987 the pianist Ivar Mikhashoff arranged Study No. 15 for string quartet. 17 years later the English composer Paul Usher also chose the string quartet when he transcribed the Studies for Player Piano Nos. 31 and No. 33 in preparation for his Nancarrow Concerto for pianola and chamber orchestra.These works are tailor-made for the Arditti Quartet. Quartets and Studies presents a collection of highly virtuosic compositions by Nancarrow and arrangements by Usher, Mikhashoff and Nancarrow.