Viotti – Three Quartets, Op. 22 (WII: 16–18)

The only collection conceived expressly for flute and string trio, Viotti’s Op. 22 was most likely written by 1806 and dedicated to his amateur flautist friend Philip Cipriani. It enriches the substantial body of contemporary compositions for the same ensemble, cultivated not only by Mozart and Haydn but also by composers such as J. Ch. Bach, Stamitz, Wendling, Devienne, Pleyel, Boccherini, Cambini, Campagnoli, Cimarosa, Paisiello, Sammartini, Rolla and Rossini, offering an engaging and domestic view of music-making in company. All the quartets are in three movements, and the writing for the individual instruments is never especially demanding, yet always refined and highly effective.

Mariateresa Dellaborra’s research focuses primarily on Italian music between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. She has published books and essays with Olschki, ETS, Brepols, L’epos, LIM, Ut Orpheus, Rugginenti and Marsilio; contributed numerous entries to The New Grove (2nd edition) and MGG; and edited critical editions of instrumental works (N. Paganini, G. B. Viotti, A. Rolla, S. Mercadante) and operas (G. B. Sammartini, N. Traetta, N. Jommelli, M. Portugal da Fonseca, A. Stradella). She is a member of the Scientific Committee of the Fondazione Arcadia (Milan) and is responsible for the Monumenti Musicali Italiani series of the Società Italiana di Musicologia. She is also part of the ITMI working group (Indici della Trattatistica Musicale Italiana), at the Fondazione Franceschini in Florence.

Claudio Paradiso, flautist and conductor, founded the chamber orchestra I Fiati di Parma in 1990 and has directed it ever since. He teaches at the Conservatory of Music in Perugia, devised the DMI – Dizionario della musica in Italia, and curates the related Archivio dei musicisti italiani (Latina). He has recorded for Amadeus, EdiPan, Edizioni De Santis, EMI–Académie de Musique de Sion and Classic Voice, and has made broadcasts for All India Radio, Canale 5, Radio de la Suisse Romande, Radiotelevisione Italiana, RadioTre, Radio Vaticana, Süddeutscher Rundfunk and the EBU – European Broadcasting Union. Actively engaged in the research and performance of the great Italian instrumental tradition of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, he has prepared numerous editions of works for and with winds by Italian composers (Belloli, Bolzoni, Carulli, Cavallini, Cimarosa, Codivilla, de Giovanni, Diana, Dotti, Druzecky, Gariboldi, Giorgetti, Hugues, Lippolis, Lovreglio, Mabellini, Mancinelli, Margola, Mercadante, F. Morlacchi, P. Morlacchi, Pagani, Petrini Zamboni, Pugni, Reicha, Romanino, Rossini, Ruge, Sangiorgi, Savi, Scontrino, Sivori, Tadolini, Taveggia, Toja, Viotti). He has also edited several essay collections, including biographies of Hugues, Tassinari, Iori, Giorgetti and Mabellini. He is currently preparing a volume on the orchestra Collegium Musicum Italicum / I Virtuosi di Roma.