“The finest string quartet, unquestionably, that our century has known.” In 1951, when the Quartetto Italiano first visited the USA, composer Virgil Thomson was enthused: “Perfection is the only word to describe this playing.” The quartet’s members, who had met while studying in Siena, made their ensemble debut in 1945. They went on to enthral audiences around the world with interpretations of proverbial beauty, insight and architectural elegance. In this collection, presenting their entire Warner Classics discography, their subtle mastery is as evident in essential Austro-German repertoire as in Italian music spanning five centuries and works by Debussy, Ravel, Milhaud, Prokofiev and Stravinsky. Complementing the catalogue they built between 1953 and 1959 is their very first recording, made in 1946 when they were still known as the Nuovo Quartetto Italiano. The collection, entirely remastered, features a number of recordings appearing on CD for the first time.

This box constitues the first comprehensive CD edition of the Quartetto Italiano’s Columbia and Telefunken output. This makes their entire studio career available on CD now, split as below:
- 1946 Durium Telefunken (included here)
- 1947-1953 Decca (Universal)
- 1953-1959 Columbia (included here)
- 1960-1980 Philips & DG (Universal)

In the summer of 1945 Paolo Borciani (1922-1985), Elisa Pegreffi (1922-2016), Lionello Forzanti (1913-2009) and Franco Rossi (1921-2006) founded the Nuovo Quartetto Italiano – to avoid confusion with a former one (Remy Principe, Ettore Gandini, Giuseppe Matteucci Luigi Chiarappa) still active at that time.

The first recital was given in Carpi on 12 November 1945 followed by one in Reggio Emilia and in December they reached Milan, where a critic wrote: “One may, without any uncertainty, speak of an important revelation in the field of chamber music.”

In March 1946 they made their first 78rpm recording – included in the box. In late 1946 the violist Lonello Forzanti left the quartet to become a conductor in the US. He was replaced by Piero Farulli (1920-2012).

The years 1947 and 1948 saw them tour in Austria, Britain, Spain, France, Germany and Holland, gaining glowing reviews of which Bernard Gavoty’s was typical: “The Nuovo Quartetto Italiano made a sensational debut in Paris, and for once the word is not too strong. I have never seen such simultaneity of attack, a like transparency of sound, a similar devotion to the common cause.”

In 1949 at the Salzburg Festival, they ran through Brahms’s F minor Quintet with Furtwängler at the piano and were bowled over by his approach. “Before, we paid no attention to anything other than respect for the score. But there is nothing to be done, in the interpretation there are human reasons that disregard the metronomic indications. […] And so we began to acquire certain spacious sounds, certain great breaths” Farulli said.

1951: now famous enough, they symbolically dropped the ‘Nuovo’.

Tour in the US: Virgil Thomson wrote in the New York Herald Tribune: “the finest string quartet, unquestionably, that our century has known. Perfection is the only word to describe this playing, perfection of a kind and degree that no quartet lover living, and no quartet player, has heard before.”

Until their disbandment in 1980 they still had four decades during which they toured farther and farther afield, accumulated more accolades and became living legends to younger players.

The whole content has been newly remastered, the large majority in 192Hz/24bit and from original tapes.

Recordings appearing on CD for the first time:
- CD 2: Mozart Quartets nos. 14 & 15
- CD 3: Beethoven Quartet no.13
- CD 5: Brahms Quartet no.3
- CD 12: Gabrieli Due canzoni per sonar a quattro, Marini Balletto primo a tre, Neri Sonata quinta a quattro, Vivaldi Sonata a quattro “Al Santo Sepolcro”
- CD 13: Schumann String Quartet in A