Zandonai: String Quartet in G Major

After CDS 168/1-2, dedicated to Malipiero’s String quartets, and CDS 418/1-3, featuring Bazzini’s, here is a CD with Verdi’s, Puccini’s and Zandonai’s contributions to this music genre, which shows that, contrary to common belief, not so few Italian composers wrote chamber works of this type. Listening to Verdi’s refined Quartet in E minor, Puccini’s somewhat humbler Crisantemi and Zandonai’s dense Quartet in G Major (the latter recorded here for the first time), the listener will be surprised not only by the melodic impressiveness of some thematic ideas (which is indeed a stylistic trait common to much Italian music) but also by the composers’ sagacious instrumental writing.

Like most of the musical forms that blossomed in the 18th century (the sonata for solo and continuo, trio sonata, concerto and symphony), the string quartet began its glorious parabola in Italy but bore its ripest fruits beyond the Alps, reaching an apex in the production of the great Austro-German classical composers, Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven in the forefront. Quite a few Italian composers, however, also gave original contributions to this genre. The present 10-CD box set offers a panoramic view of quartet music in Italy, from Boccherini’s elegant classical writing, to Malipiero’s controversial stance against Romanticism, passing through Bazzini, Verdi, Puccini and Respighi. Performers are the internationally renowned Quartetto di Venezia.