Quartetto di Cremona

The Quartetto di Cremona ranks among Italy’s foremost chamber ensembles, maintaining a broad repertory that encompasses cornerstones of the string-quartet literature such as Beethoven’s complete cycle alongside Italian repertoire both modern and historical.

Established in 2000 in its hometown of Cremona at the Accademia Stauffer, the ensemble’s members studied there with several teachers, including violinist Salvatore Accardo. Its present personnel—violinists Cristiano Gualco and Paolo Andreoli, violist Simone Gramaglia, and cellist Giovanni Scaglione—has remained unchanged since 2002. Further training came from violist Piero Farulli of the Quartetto Italiano at the Scuola di Musica di Fiesole and from violist Hatto Beyerle of the Alban Berg Quartet. In 2005 the quartet received the Borletti Buitoni Trust’s BBT Fellowship, an award that launched an international career encompassing performances at such prominent halls as Berlin’s Konzerthaus, London’s Wigmore Hall, and Bonn’s Beethovenhaus. Festival engagements have included the Beethovenfest in Bonn, the Bozar Festival in Brussels, and the Kammermusik Gemeinde in Hannover, while European radio broadcasts have regularly featured the group. A residency at Milan’s Società del Quartetto allowed the ensemble to present a full Beethoven quartet cycle. Since 2011 the musicians have returned to the Accademia Stauffer as instructors and have conducted master classes across Europe, Asia, and the Americas. Their programming reaches from Haydn’s earliest quartets to recent Italian scores by composers including Fabio Vacchi, Lorenzo Ferrero, and Silvia Colasanti.

A cycle of Beethoven quartets for the Audite label was begun in 2013, and the same imprint has also released the quartet’s Schubert recordings; contemporary Italian works appear on the Klanglogo label. In 2020 the ensemble transferred to Avie Records for the album Italian Postcards, devoted to Italy-inspired pieces by Wolf, Tchaikovsky, and Nimrod Borenstein.