Arne Nordheim, the leading Norwegian composer of his generation, was born in 1931 at Larvik on the Oslofjord. He studied first at the conservatory in Oslo with Bjarne Brustad before moving to Copenhagen, where the composer Vagn Holmboe introduced him to the compositional techniques of Bartók. A visit to Paris in 1955 brought experience of electronic music, with which, after further study in Bilthoven and Warsaw, and in Stockholm, where he met György Ligeti, he was able to pioneer new techniques in Norway, a country that musically had remained generally conservative in taste. With a wide range of compositions for the theatre, television and cinema, Nordheim went on to play a leading part in contemporary music in Norway. Nordheim was initially influenced by Sibelius and, still more, by Mahler, and then by Bartók’s string quartets, and these influences are reflected in Rendezvous.