The Quartetto Italiano

[Barbirollians]

What are your favourite recordings from this marvellous ensemble ?

Their Emperor and Sunrise coupling introduced me to Haydn as a teenager , the Debussy and Ravel remains at the top and their Beethoven late quartets remain my benchmarks .

[aeolium]

Hard to know where to start. I loved almost everything they recorded. The Haydn "Lark" and "Quinten" quartets were also very good (despite a tempo for the first movement of the Lark that would now be considered sluggish). The Mozart quartets, especially K464 and K499. The Beethoven quartets, my favourites here being op 59 no 3, op 74, op 127 and op 132. The Brahms and Schumann quartets, and a Brahms piano quintet of almost frightening power with Pollini as the pianist. And the Schubert late quartets, a lovely performance of D804 and in their performance of D887 one of the finest chamber music recordings I have ever heard. Their recording of the complete music for string quartet by Webern is also impressive, and it's a pity that they did not record AFAIK the Schoenberg quartets (and what a shame that they recorded so little Haydn).

[Richard Tarleton]

Is there a biography or similar of them, does anybody know? There's a curious reference to them in Vikram Seth's An Equal Music which I've never seen elsewhere.

On my shelves: complete Beethoven quartets, and Schubert D804/810.

[antongould]

Shamefully as their Beethoven 131/132 was one of my first and favourite CDs I have added little just Schubert late Quartets. For some strange reason spurred by this thread I went onto eBay on found the vast majority of not too many entries to be vinyl - can their star be fading?

[Roehre]

What are your favourite recordings from this marvellous ensemble ? .

If I have to chose one recording of the Italiano's, it would be their LP (later CD) of the (then complete) string quartets by Anton Webern.

then their Ravel/Debussy and late Beethoven follow suit.

[antongould]

If I have to chose one recording of the Italiano's, it would be their LP (later CD) of the (then complete) string quartets by Anton Webern.

then their Ravel/Debussy and late Beethoven follow suit.

Oh good I'm top bidder at 1.04 on eBay for the Ravel Debussy only another 4 nerve racking days to go!

[Barbirollians]

Shamefully as their Beethoven 131/132 was one of my first and favourite CDs I have added little just Schubert late Quartets. For some strange reason spurred by this thread I went onto eBay on found the vast majority of not too many entries to be vinyl - can their star be fading?

Well they disbanded in 1980 so that might explain it .

Their Debussy/Ravel was shamefully not even mentioned when the Debussy was on BAL a few years back .

[Bryn]

I have their Beethoven and Mozart on both LP and CD, and their late Schubert on CD. Their Debussy, Ravel and Webern I have only on LP, but am looking out for the CDs at sensible prices, or failing that, decent FLACs.

Favourites are their late Beethoven. Though memories of attending an all Beethoven concert by them in Piacenza Town Hall back in the late '70s remain vivid.

[verismissimo]

I'm with aeolium and roehre in treasuring particularly their Webern. They make such real music of those gossamer pieces.

[mathias broucek]

Gosh! Where do I start? Beethoven Op 74, Late Schubert, Schumann Op 41/3, Webern

As others have suggested they seem to be "out of fashion" for reasons that I don't really understand.....

[tony yyy]

I've long been and admirer of the Quartetto Italiano's recordings and regret that I never got to hear them live. I think I must have had almost all their Philips recordings on LP or CD and it's difficult to pick a favourite but I often return to their late Beethoven. And, of course the Schubert G major, even if it is rather slow. And the Debussy, ... As mathias broucek says, they seem to be out of fashion at the moment. Theirs isn't the only possible approach, of course, and they do seem to favour blend above individuality and sometimes the inner parts sound a bit reticent to me. Maybe that's got something to do with Philips's recording, but the results were always beautiful. Is the Webern available on CD?

[Barbirollians]

I bought their full set of the Beethoven quartets very cheaply a couple of years back and to my shame I have only just hit round to playing them - the Op 18 quartets are marvellous and cannot wait for the rest .

It seems to me it is all too easy to become too intense in late Beethoven - and they don't - they really allow the wonder of the music to speak for itself .

[richardfinegold]

Their Beethoven seems to flow and sing, without undue italicizing or speed demo Ray that seems to obsess many of the current generation of Quartets. Their complete Mozart set is a real joy as well.

[Dave2002]

Good to see this thread being revived. Makes a change from dishwasher tablets anyway!

I don't know enough about string playing, but I once played a recording of the Italian quartet playing Beethoven quartets to a string player friend. She observed after a very short while that they bowed in a different way from some other quartets. How she could tell from a recording I have no idea, but maybe string players are very sensitive to this sort of thing.

I used to think that I could tell - a bit. Strong accents - tending to be done by down bows, but then when I tried to correlate what I could hear in live concerts I found that I could often not tell whether the players were using up or down strokes. I might do better commenting about wind players.

[cloughie]

Amazon.it has the 37CD QI set for £55.50 inc p&p