Luogo e data di registrazione		Vedere le originarie pubblicazioni in Long Playing.
	Registrazione: live / studio		studio
	Producer / Engineer		Tahra | Charles Eddi
	Prima Edizione LP		Vedere le originarie pubblicazioni in Long Playing.
	Edizione CD		Tahra | Tah 647-648 | 2 CDs - 63' 21" - 58' 42" | (c) & (p) 2008 | ADD
	Note		Compilation.

Il Quartetto Italiano Founded in 1945, the Quartetto Italiano gave more than 3000 concerts all over the world, from Argentina to Zambia, throughout Western and Eastern Europe and the USA, until they dissolved themselves in 1980. For all but four of its thirty-five years the quartet remained unchanged: Paolo Borciani, Elisa Pegreffi, Piero Farulli and Franco Rossi. And unlike so many other quartets, the members of the Quartetto Italiano didn’t play on great Stradivarius, Guamierius or Amati instruments, but on less venerable and less famous instruments. In other words, the musician was more important for the beauty of sound than his or her instrument. The four members of the Quartetto indeed used metal strings to avoid tedious tuning sessions between movements. They gave their first concert (without scores) on 12 November 1945 in Carpi. A month later, on 13 December they played in Milan at the Camerata Musicale: it was a revelation, and concert organizers all over Italy started booking them. They were nicknamed the “four Peter Pans of music”. On 8 March 1946, the quartet won a Competition sponsored by the Accademia Santa Cecilia and the Accademia Filarmonica Romana in Rome, and in December 1946, they played their first concert abroad, at the Zurich Tonhalle. Piero Farulli took over from Lionello Forzanti in February 1947 and they expanded their repertoire to include Haydn’s Quartet op. 64/6, Beethoven’s Quartet Op. 59/3, and the sixth Bartok quartet. They started playing more and more abroad, in 1948 in England, Scotland, Spain, France (Paris, Salle Gaveau on 3 May) and started recording for Decca. From 1953 onwards, they recorded for Columbia, then for Philips from 1965 till their dissolution. In 1949, they played in Czechoslovakia, Demnark, Norway and Holland and in 1950, for the first time in Germany. In 1951, they met Wilhelm Furtwängler in Salzburg. One particular meeting at night turned into an extraordinary music lesson that made an indelible impression on them because it showed them how freedom of expression was essential if they were to penetrate the very heart of romantic music (1). 1951 also saw their first trip to America: on 4 November they made their debut in New York. This initial success in America was followed (until 1977) by many others. They continued to play by heart, but in 1957 decided to broaden their repertoire, marking an important step towards that freedom Furtwängler had talked of. They also took part in many of the great music festivals - Lucerne in 1955, Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in 1959, Prague Spring Festival 1961, Berliner Festwochen in 1977 - and in 1973 performed in Poland and South America. By 1972 they had mastered the entire Mozart cycle, and, in 1973, the Beethoven. The quartet was at its peak during the 1970s, and often played entire programs devoted to a single composer or a great masterpiece such as Beethoven’s opus 132 or Schubert’s Rosamunde. They also began working with Maurizio Pollini, for example in the Brahms quintet opus 34 with piano... but fate took a hand, and in December 1977, Piero Farulli suffered a severe ischemic attack and was forced to leave the quartet for good. The violinist Dino Asciolla replaced him and went on tour with them to Israel. But with Farulli’s departure the magic had gone and in February 1980, the quartet dissolved itself. Paolo Borciani dedicated himself to the string quartet version of Bach’s Art de la Fugue that he performed with Elisa Pegreffi and two young pupils of Farulli and and Rossi at the Teatro alla Scala. Then they went their separate ways: Elisa Pegreffi dedicated herself to teaching, Piero Farulli opened the Scuola di Fiesole that became an internationally renowned centre and Franco Rossi returned to chamber music. The repertoire of the Quartetto Italiano centered on the great masterpieces: Beethoven, Mozart, Schumann, Brahms, Webern, Schubert’s string quartets from the Quartettsatz D 703 onwards, and Haydn’s most important quartets. Their version of Debussy’s quartet coupled with the Ravel is still a reference version, even today. On the other hand, Mendelssohn was not part of their repertoire and they never played a single work by Schönberg, and only a few works by Stravinsky. Indeed, the Quartetto Italiano concentrated mainly on the masterpieces of the Mitteleuropa School, feeling that more "nationalist" works should be performed by native interpreters. However, their repertoire did include many baroque and contemporary Italian composers: Corelli. Giardini. Boccherini, Cherubini, Donizetti as well as Bucchi, Ghedini and Bussotti, who specifically composed for the Quartetto. The phenomenal success of the "Quartetto Italiano" lay, of course, in their technique - both as individuals and as a quartet. But they also showed great respect for the score and managed to marry the canto all'italiana (Italian singing) style with the more rigorous German performance culture that emphasized a continuous, almost tormented pursuit of the essence of the music. This question of style was the fundamental issue for these Italian musicians when they tackled the Viennese School or the German romantic era. The decisive turning point was their meeting with Furtwängler. He had invited them in August 1951 to his hotel at the end of a concert. Furtwängler asked them to play the Verdi quartet, then accompanied them on the piano in Brahms’ Quintet op. 34. Paolo Borciani wrote: "That evening everything became clear to us”. Furtwängler was Paolo Borciani’s great musical passion, and the entire Quartetto Italiano shared this passion. “We admired Furtwängler so much”, said Elisa Pegreffi, “that even his so-called defects became in our eyes virtues: his freedom, his great ability to conceive of music in overarching phrases, his sense of the tragic opened up the entire world to us. Furtwängler caused each one of us to experience a fundamental crisis which lasted almost an entire year, because we had understood that music had to be played differently”. This encounter remained a milestone for the Quartetto Italiano. It freed them to pursue the service of music in the deepest sense of the word. All that happened in a single night: and they understood that sound was not to be made only by following the notes in the printed score but had to be brought to life as “a means and, if necessary, even with brutality”. (1) On 9 and 10 November 1962, the Quartetto performed Martinu’s concerto for string quartet under Hermann Scherchen at La Scala of Milan.