Luogo e data di registrazione		Vedere le originarie pubblicazioni in Long Playing.
	Registrazione: live / studio		studio
	Producer / Engineer		-
	Prima Edizione LP		Vedere le originarie pubblicazioni in Long Playing.
	Edizione CD		Testament | SBT 1123 | 1 CD - 60' 52" | (c) & (p) 1998 | ADD - Mono/Stereo* Testament | SBT 1124 | 1 CD - 76' 28" | (c) & (p) 1998 | ADD - Mono Testament | SBT 1125 | 1 CD - 79' 33" | (c) & (p) 1998 | ADD - Mono/Stereo*
	Note		Compilation.

By the early 20th Century, Italy was in the invidious position of having two of the most distinguished quartet societies -in Milan and Florence - but no ensemble capable of matching the visiting string quartets who graced their programmes: the Joachim, Rosé, Bohemian, Capet, Klingler, Flonzaley, Ševčik-Lhotsky, Léner, Busch, Prague or Budapest. Even the celebrated Florentine Quartet (1865 to 1880) was led by an Alsatian, Jean Becker; and few Italians after the death of Alfredo Piatti in 1901 could claim eminence in chamber music - Alfredo Casella and Enrico Mainardi come to mind, both associated with piano trios. Alfredo Poltronieri, who played in Casella’s trio, led an excellent quartet which toured widely between the wars, and every major Italian city could boast at least one ensemble; but the qualitative gap between home teams and visitors remained. It was all part of the decline in orchestral and instrumental music caused by Italy’s concentration on opera in the 19th century. A number of devoted teachers were labouring to turn the tide but it would be some time before their efforts paid off. Even in the composition of quartets, Italy had little to be proud of: the early achievements of Cambini, Giardini, Boccherini and Paisiello were not followed up in the 19th century, except by the staid Cherubini and the lightweight Donizetti. Verdi's one effort was produced as a change from his real business, opera; Busoni's two were uncharacteristic early works; and Martucci, composer of a gorgeous piano quintet, published no quartet. Four young people who met at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena in the early 1940s were determined to change all this. Indeed Paolo Borciani, Elisa Pegreffi, Lionello Forzanti and Franco Rossi were the spearheads of a movement which by the 1950s would take their country into the forefront of chamber music - we must not forget the quartet to which Pina Carmirelli (like Borciani a pupil of Arrigo Serato) gave her name. In fact the four students were brought together by the eminent chamber coach Arturo Bonucci - cellist of the Casella trio, the Quintetto Boccherini and the Carmirelli Quartet and Carmirelli’s husband. The youngsters got on so well, preparing Debussy's Op.10 under Bonucci’s tutelage, that they swore to meet again when the war was over. So in the summer of 1945 Borciani, Pegreffi, Forzanti and Rossi founded the Nuovo Quartetto Italiano - the "Nuovo" distinguishing them from a previous ensemble and signifying their intention to give Italy a fresh start in chamber music. From the beginning they determined to play all their repertoire from memory - a vow they maintained for ten years. Meeting in the Borciani family’s Reggio Emilia apartment (where Paolo’s elder brother Guido, an engineer but also a superb amateur pianist, still lives), they worked on their debut programme: three pieces by Corelli, the Debussy and 5travinsky’s Concertino for the first half, then Beethoven’s First Rasumovsky. "They had some sponsors," recalled Guido Borciani, "and we put together a small orchestra, with two singers, and gave some concerts in small musical centres to make money for them.” The first recital of the New Italian Quartet was given in Carpi on November 12, 1945. It was followed by one in Reggio Emilia and in December they reached Milan, where a critic wrote of "an important revelation in the field of chamber music". In 1947 ’Nello’ Forzanti left the Quartetto to pursue a conducting career. He later returned to the viola - and in his 80s is still a member of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. His successor was the tall, serious Piero Farulli, a Florentine aged 26 who had been hoping for this very eventuality; with him they had to work up their small repertoire all over again. The years 1947 and 1948 saw them touring Austria, Britain, Spain, France, Germany and Holland and in 1951, after many invitations, they were finally ready and able to tour the United States, ”the country where we were playing the trump card of our future”, as Farulli put it. Well prepared, they were a tremendous success and it seemed only fitting that they had now dropped the 'Nuovo' from their name. In 1952 Elisa Pegreffi became Signora Borciani but in September her husband fell ill and they had to cancel a 74-concert tour of the United States. Not until January 30 1953, after five months of inactivity, could they resume their concert career. The birth on May 30 of Mario Borciani, destined to be a pianist and composer, was not allowed to interfere with their schedule and within two weeks they were recording in Milan for EMI/Columbia. Their early performances had revealed an ensemble rather like the pre-war Franco-Belgian quartets, such as the Flonzaley or the Pro Arte, light-toned and mercurial, with deft and delicate bowing. There were also hints that they were capable of a beauty of tone equalled in their own generation only by the Hollywood, Smetana and Borodin Quartets. They combined grace and lightness with a touch of portamento, but their charm and elegance had a deeper side. By 1953 they were coming closer to an ’Italian’ sound, with suave, sonorous bowing and chording. Paolo Borciani, who was proud of their international status, once sternly rebuked an Italian journalist who described them as a national phenomenon. And yet the central strength of the Quartetto was that it was so deeply rooted in a national context - that it played in an italianate way, with a recognisably Italian style. It is easier to recognise 'the Italian style’ than to explain what sets it apart, and what we mean by Italian style is different from what our grandfathers meant. In both singing and string playing, during the 20th century the old bel canto purity of tone and line has been deformed into a more forceful, vibrant, voluminous delivery known in opera as verismo. But certain basic verities remain. The Italian school of musicianship still concerns itself with beauty and luminosity of tone, with legato and cantabile, and with a ”rounding-off’ of angles and corners. Where Germans might revel in a certain angularity of voice-leading and Russians might lay too much stress on weight and intensity of tone, Italians never lose sight of their essential portamento. And you would have to go a long way to find anything more elegant than the Quartetto’s phrasing of a Boccherini movement. Unlike some of their compatriots, these sensitive players observed a wide range of dynamics and never overdid the vibrancy. "On vibrato, each listened to each; we were four and yet we had the sarne sort of vibrato - it just came like that.” said Elisa Pegreffi. In the concert hall, as on their best records, they gave out an indefinable yet almost palpable spiritual radiance in slow movements. Not everyone was convinced bythe foursome”s approach, however, and with hindsight their EMI/Columbia recordings can be seen as documenting a transitional period in their progress. At the root of it all was that 'éminence grise’ of rhythmic distortion, Wilhelm Furtwängler. Meeting him at the Salzburg Festival in 1949, they ran through Brahms’ F minor Quintet with the conductor at the piano and were bowled over by his approach. That one evening changed their whole attitude to their work and it can now be seen that they were struggling to bring a new rhythmic freedom to bear on their innate (albeit italianate) Classicism. Borciani and Rossi were the dominant personalities in rehearsal, while Farulli was a naturally quiet, dignified man who generally kept his firmly held musical opinions to himself - and Pegreffi, a most voluble individual in private life, respected her colleagues too much to lay down the law except on questions of repertoire (it was because of her that they played no Mendelssohn or Tchaikovsky and only one work by Malipiero). ”There was no pacifist in the Quartetto but Farulli and I were more ready to accept what the others said, because we knew we had two great musicians with us,” she said. ”We never joked - we quarrelled but we never joked!” On a technical level, Borciani was a born leader and Pegreffi was the perfect second violin, achieving a miraculous match with her husband and managing to meet Farulli’s darker tone at the other extreme of the range. Rossi was 'a poet’, in the opinion of Antonín Kohout, his opposite number in the Smetana Quartet. All tour were notable personalities, able to take solos with aplomb, and their control of intonation was uncanny. “The cello’s tuning often went down but Rossi always managed to adjust the pitch,” said Pegreffi. “We never tuned between movements; it meant having very good ears but we could retune even during movements, using the fine-tuners. It was typical of the way in which each of us was very attentive to what the others were doing - the clarity came out.” Of course the four were asked to teach and they did so individually, the violinists in Milan and Farulli and Rossi in Florence. Of even greater value were their corporate masterclasses at the Royal Academy of Stockholm and especially their summer courses at the Vacanze Musicali in Venice. Wilhelm Melcher, leader of the Melos Quartet of Stuttgart for more than three decades, went there in 1962 with his student ensemble and was deeply impressed. "They have influenced the way we teach,” he said. “They taught as a group and they played a lot for the students. Many things about playing quartets cannot be described, they can only be demonstrated - it gives the students something to copy.” In 1959 and 1960 the Quartetto played works written for them by Bucchi and Ghedini and started the serious study and performance of Webern’s quartet music. They did their first work with orchestra, the Concerto by Martinů and they performed Schoenberg’s Second Quartet with the soprano Marguerite Kalmus. Piero Farulli wanted to add Berg’s Lyric Suite to their repertoire but it never happened, although they did play Bussotti and Shostakovich. By the mid-1960s they had undergone a radical rethinking. "We took stock of ourselves in recent years,” Borciani said in 1977. "We started just after the war, in a Toscanini style, everything in its place. But the world changed - and luckily we grew up with the world.” The four seemed to risk much broader tempi, executed with a more massive, muscular approach to chording and tone quality. Was it all gain? We heard a serious, sober Classical ensemble, more pleasing to more critics - but also more predictable, with every chord, every bowing worked out in advance. The Quartetto’s italianate qualities - polish, charm, elegance and gentleness - were in danger of being swamped by an assumed Germanic seriousness. They worked through this phase, reached a new plateau of excellence and were planning to work on string quintets - Mozart with Dino Asciolla and Schubert with Pierre Fournier - when, in December 1977, Piero Farulli had a heart attack. His colleagues replaced him temporarily with Asciolla and the resulting breach has only recently been healed. Asciolla became a permanent member of the ensemble but when he abruptly quit early in 1980, that was the end. Paolo Borciani thereafter devoted much of his time to studying Bach’s Art of Fugue. In the autumn of 1984 he discovered he had inoperable cancer - but he was determined to play Bach's masterpiece in public with his wife and two members of the Giovane Quartetto Italiano. He finished the first performance, at La Scala in November, “by force of the soul", as his brother Guido put it; and a later performance was recorded. His death in 1985 put an end to any talk of reviving Italy’s greatest chamber ensemble. Yet its legacy is vast; and it lives on in such groups as the Quartetto Paolo Borciani and the Giovane Quartetto Italiano. Prokofiev, Stravinsky, Milhaud & Malipiero - (Testament SBT 1123) The Quartetto's EMI/Columbia recordings are important, apart from their intrinsic beauty: they preserve a number of interpretations which were not otherwise documented; and they catch the players at an interesting stage of development, when they had mastered their craft but were still able to inject considerable spontaneity into their playing. Our programme concentrates on the modern music to which they brought so much care in preparation. Prokofiev's work may seem a strange choice for an Italian ensemble but in fact the Quartetto Carmirelli also made a famous recording of it. Unlike the composer’s first quartet, which is in his familiar spiky style, this one from 1941 is heavily influenced by folk music -from the Kabardin region where he had been evacuated during the war. Stravinsky's Three Pieces are the only music by this composer that the Quartetto recorded, although they played all his quartet works together in concert. Stravinsky originally called the work Grotesques, with the subsidiary titles Danse, Ex<centrique (this central piece was based on the antics of the English comedian Little Tich) and Cantique; but he later withdrew the titles. Milhaud’s lovely little Quartet No. 12, written in ten days in memory of Fauré for his centenary in 1945, is a memento of the Italians’ skill in French music. And the Malipiero, dating from 1934, is a typical production from a composer who seemed, with his transparent linear writing, to renew the Italian style. Just as its seven sections make up one movement, so do Malipiero’s eight quartets - all dedicated to his patron Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge - seem to add up to one continuous statement. The entire programme is a timely reminder that contemporary music can be played with beauty of tone and serenity of spirit. Vitali, Vivaldi, Galuppi, Boccherini & Cambini - (Testament SBT 1124) The Quartetto’s EMI/Columbia recordings are important, apart from their intrinsic beauty: they preserve a number of interpretations which were not otherwise documented; and they catch the players at an interesting stage of development, when they had mastered their craft but were still able to inject considerable spontaneity into their playing. This programme concentrates on the Italian music they played so luminously. Giovanni Battista Vitali is known today by a chaconne for violin and continuo which may not even be his handiwork, so it is good to have a performance of this fine Capriccio which definitely is by him. Antonio \/ivaldi wrote a number of sonatas and concertos which are usually played by multiple strings with continuo; the Quartetto’s unauthentic but glowing performance of the most famous of these pieces brings out the line partwriting. As for Baldassare Galuppi, his lovely music is seldom heard today and no one has been able to identify the work referred to in Browning’s poem A Toccata of Galuppi. Michelangeli used to play some of his delightful keyboard music and one or two of his melodious operas have been revived. The Quartetto here plays the first and best of his six Concerti a quattro. Boccherini and Cambini were two of the most prolific composers of the Classical period. Both were expert string players - the first a cellist and the second a violinist and violist - and both enjoyed playing quartets. Boccherini’s quartets have been overshadowed by his wonderful quintets but they bear the same hallmarks of a superb melodic gift, a fine ear for sonority and a considerable skill in part-writing. Because he spent so much time in Spain, one can often hear Spanish influences on his native lyricism, especially here in La Tiranna Spagnola. Cambini wrote in a similarly graceful style though in his case the moderating influence was French. Until the Quartetto Carmirelli and Quartetto Italiano rehabilitated him in the 1950s, all his 144 quartets seemed doomed to everlasting neglect. Haydn, Mozart & Schubert - (Testament SBT 1125) The Quartetto’s EMI/Columbia recordings are important, apart from their intrinsic beauty: they preserve a number of interpretations which were not otherwise documented; and they catch the players at an interesting stage of development, when they had mastered their craft but were still able to inject considerable spontaneity into their playing. The present programme highlights their skill in Classical music, beginning with some light-footed Haydn in which every note is made to tell. How timeless Haydn’s birdsong is in such a performance. This performance of Mozart's Hunt Quartet is in many ways preferable to their later one; although it must be admitted that sheer vitality of rhythm - as displayed, say, by their friends the Smetana Quartet- was never their strongest point. The early Mozart work is again played rather more freshly than on their later recording and the disc ends with an outstanding rendering of Schubert's Second Quartet in C, performed with gusto and freshness. The Schubert was new to them - and partly new to the rest of the world, as the scholar Maurice Brown had only recently discovered two of its movements. This was the first complete recording and it has yet to be equalled. © Tully Potter, 1998