The Quartet has performed in major concert halls and cultural festivals all over the world and has the longest discography of any group of its type.

The Arditti Quartet is dedicated to 20th century and contemporary works, a niche in chamber music where classical masters dominate.

[4][5] The quartet is considered the authentic interpreters for many late 20th century composers,[6] with a reputation for mastering the most difficult and complex compositions.

[7] These composers range from those active in the early 20th century to the present and include Hans Abrahamsen, Thomas Adès, Luciano Berio, John Cage, Elliott Carter, Franco Donatoni, Pascal Dusapin, Henri Dutilleux, Brian Ferneyhough, Morton Feldman, Georg Friedrich Haas, György Kurtág, Helmut Lachenmann, György Ligeti, Witold Lutosławski, Wolfgang Rihm, Giacinto Scelsi, and Iannis Xenakis.

[7] In their first concert they played new compositions only, but by their second year, they decided that their repertoire needed to include works of the Second Viennese School and Bartók came soon after.

[7] Norwegian composer Sven Lyder Kahrs [no] calls the group the "Rolls-Royce" of quartets, in part because he does not have to explain how to play his music to them.

[7] The Quartet was founded in 1974 by Irvine Arditti with Levine Andrade, Lennox Mackenzie and John Senter while all were students at the Royal Academy of Music.

[4] In their early years, before the end of the 1970s, the ensemble performed and recorded all the quartets of Hans Werner Henze and Gyorgy Ligeti.

[11] The Quartet has a worldwide reputation as a leader for its interpretation of 20th century and contemporary new music,[7][12] receiving extensive critical praise.

[6] They have been noted for their "...astonishing virtuosity and their willingness to extend the boundaries of what can be expected of a string quartet..."[8] However, they have also been criticized as being severe, dry and intellectual[6] with a "kind of high-flown rhetoric that almost seemed designed to show that 'new music' can live in a pretentiously self-absorbed world.

[6] Members of the group regularly conduct master classes in Europe, the United States and Canada, for performers and composers, generally in a guest capacity.

[3] In 2013, they collaborated with the composer Brian Ferneyhough on a documentary called Climbing a Mountain which is about how the group prepares for the presentation of new pieces.