Bazzini – String Quartet No. 1 in C major

Antonio Bazzini (Brescia, 1818 – Milan, 1897), a virtuoso violinist in the first part of his career and later a composer chiefly of chamber and symphonic music, was one of the most influential Italian musicians of the second half of the nineteenth century. The Quartet in C major is the first of the six string quartets Bazzini composed over a period of just under thirty years. It won first prize in the first edition of the competition announced in 1864 by the newly founded Società del Quartetto di Milano. Well received by the critics, it was first presented to the Milanese public on 14 May 1865. The first edition of the score, published by Ricordi on behalf of the Società del Quartetto between the end of 1864 and the beginning of 1865, was followed some twenty years later by the publication of the separate parts only by the Lucca publishing house, an edition that had been mistakenly backdated to 1866 and that contains slight variants compared with the original score. The latter has therefore been adopted as the basis for the critical edition.

Marina Vaccarini was born in Milan, where she studied at the “G. Verdi” Conservatory and the State University. Her research interests focus primarily on composers and aspects of music in Italy from the eighteenth to the twentieth century. She has published books and essays with LIM, Brepols, BMG Ricordi, Ibis, Skira, Nuove Edizioni, Baldini e Castoldi, Olschki, Curci, LED Edizioni Universitarie, Guerini and Die Schachtel. For the Fondazione Arcadia in Milan, she prepared the critical edition of four of Giovanni Battista Sammartini’s eight Lenten cantatas. She also collaborates with the cultural association NoMus, Centro Studi e Ricerche sulla Musica Moderna e Contemporanea, in editing books and concert presentations for major museum institutions in Milan (Museo del Novecento, Casa-Museo Boschi Di Stefano). For six years she was a member of the Board of Auditors of the Società Italiana di Musicologia. She currently teaches Music History at the “Luca Marenzio” Conservatory in Brescia, at its Darfo Boario Terme campus.