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Quartetto di Cremona Marks 25th Anniversary Season with North American Tour and Album Release
Bach's The Art of Fugue
Orchid Classics - November 1, 2024
North American Fall Tour
October 24–November 3, 2024
Toronto (ON), Ashland and Cloverdale (OR), New York City and Syracuse (NY), Lewisburg (PA)
“It’s a rare blend: breadth of sound and capriciousness combined with perfect tuning and ensemble has the players sounding absolutely of one voice… Nothing less than life-affirming.”--Gramophone
"...splendid balance, abundant colour and a relaxed mastery of all the musical elements.”
--The Strad
Quartetto di Cremona, one of the world’s preeminent string quartets, celebrate their 25th anniversary season in 2024–25 with an ambitious new recording of J.S. Bach’s The Art of Fugue (Orchid Classics, November 1) and a world tour that includes nine stops in the United States.
The Quartetto di Cremona are Cristiano Gualco and Paolo Andreoli, violin; Simone Gramaglia, viola; and Giovanni Scaglione, cello.
About Quartetto di Cremona
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Electronic Press Kit
Bach's The Art of Fugue (Orchid Classics, November 1)
For an EPK & audio files, contact Beverly Greenfield
For their first album release since 2020, Quartetto di Cremona brings a fascinating and multi-dimensional approach to J.S. Bach’s The Art of Fugue. They use innovative instrumentation to create a new interpretation -- several years in the making -- of the Baroque master’s seminal work in honor of their 25th Anniversary.
The idea was to play the score as written. But The Art of Fugue was not written with a string quartet in mind, and the inner lines in several of the movements go beyond the ranges of the second violin and viola. To reach those notes, second violinist Paolo Andreoli took the time to learn to play viola for these movements, and violist Simone Gramaglia had a tenor viola made. In addition, the Quartetto took advantage of Gramaglia's ability to play the recorder to add a whole new sound in two of the counterpoints (duets). With these additions, the quartet uses seven instruments in total across the piece.
First violinist Cristiano Gualco says in the liner notes, "Listening to The Art of Fugue is, for me, and I suspect for many, getting closer and closer to the absolute, to a higher form of understanding the symmetries and the order of the universe." This feeling is represented, in a slightly different form, on the cover of the album: a photograph of the Great Orion Nebula , taken by Gualco, who spent much of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic learning the art and science of astrophotography. "In the Great Orion Nebula," he says, "so many things have happened and are happening, starting from chaos and finding order and returning to chaos. This constant metamorphosis is very much like our experience in The Art of Fugue, counterpoint after counterpoint. Some of them are simple, some so complicated that playing them we have the feeling that we got lost. But even in those cases the music resolves itself towards perfection and intelligibility.’"
Haydn, Dvorak, Bartók, Schumann, Ravel and Malipiero
The “Quartetto di Cremona 25 World Tour” comes to North America in October and November 2024 , with performances in Ontario, Oregon, New York and Pennsylvania, and returns in April 2025, with stops in Florida, Colorado, Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
For their 25th Anniversary, the Quartetto take on the complex, challenging cycle of Bartók Quartets, performing the composer's work in North America for the first time. They offer the sheer beauty of Dvořák, Ravel and Schumann to balance out the program. "When it comes to Schumann," says Gualco, "it was the reason I decided to play in a string quartet. The slow movement of his third quartet, in the version of the Quartetto Italiano, moved me to tears when I was only a boy much before I knew about chamber music."
In addition to their appearances in North America, the Quartetto appear in Europe in Prague, Pully (Switzerland), Madrid and Rome. In January 2025, the Quartetto tour Taiwan and China and in December 2025, return to Asia with stops in Tokyo and Yokohama, Japan to perform and to teach. As the Quartetto makes its way around the world, they will perform in exquisite tuxedos designed by the renowned Italian designer Brunello Cucinelli. The Quartetto di Cremona wishes to express its deepest gratitude to the Cucinelli family for their generous support and for creating these marvelous stage costumes.
QUARTETTO DI CREMONA
NORTH AMERICAN FALL TOUR
Thursday, October 24, 7:30 pm | Toronto, ON
Music Toronto
Malipiero String Quartet No. 2, Stornelli e Ballate
Ravel String Quartet in F Major
Robert Schumann Op. 41, No. 1
Link to Venue
Saturday, October 26, 3:00 pm | Ashland, OR
Chamber Music Concerts
Dvořák String Quartet in F Major, Op. 96 “American”
Bartók Quartet No. 4
Robert Schumann Op. 41, No. 1
Link to Venue
Sunday, October 27, 3:00 pm | Cloverdale, OR
Neskowin Chamber Music
Dvořák String Quartet in F Major, Op. 96 “American”
Bartók Quartet No. 4
Robert Schumann Op. 41, No. 1
Link to Venue
Wednesday, October 30, 7:30 pm | New York, NY
Aspect Chamber Music Series
Haydn Quartet in G Major for Strings, Op. 77, No. 1 (3rd Movement)
Robert Schumann Op. 41 No. 1
Ravel String Quartet in F Major
Link to Venue
Saturday, November 2, 7:30 pm | Syracuse, NY
Syracuse Friends of Chamber Music
Ravel String Quartet in F Major
Bartók Quartet No. 4
Robert Schumann Op. 41 No. 1
Link to Venue
Sunday, November 3, 4:00 pm | Lewisburg, PA
Weis Center for the Performing Arts at Bucknell University
Dvořák String Quartet in F Major, Op. 96 “American”
Bartók Quartet No. 4
Robert Schumann Op. 41 No. 1
Link to Venue
US SPRING TOUR (April 6–13, 2025)
Sunday, April 6, 3:00 pm | Palm Beach, FL
The Society of the Four Arts
Debussy Quartet in G minor for strings, Op. 10
Osvaldo Golijov Tenebrae
Beethoven String Quartet in A minor, Op. 132
Link to Venue
Wednesday, April 9, 7:30 pm | Denver, CO
Friends of Chamber Music Denver
Debussy Quartet in G minor for strings, Op. 10
Osvaldo Golijov Tenebrae
Brahms String Quintet in G Major, Op. 111 (with Basil Vendryes, viola)
Link to Venue
Thursday, April 10, 7:30 pm | Kennett Square, PA
Longwood Gardens
Malipiero Stornelli e ballate
Debussy Quartet in G minor for strings, Op. 10
Beethoven String Quartet in A minor, Op. 132
Link to Venue
Sunday, April 13, 4:00 pm | Ridgewood, NJ
Parlance Chamber Concerts
Debussy Quartet in G minor for strings, Op. 10
Osvaldo Golijov Tenebrae
Beethoven String Quartet in A minor, Op. 132
Link to Venue