Giovanni Battista Viotti
Six string quartets, op. 1 (WII: 1-6)
ed. by Mariateresa Dellaborra 
(Musica Strumentale, 6)

XXXVIII, 140 pp.; 4 parti: 47, 44, 36, 33 pp.; 29,7 x 21 cm
Italian/English Introduction and Apparatus

The Six Quartets Op. 1 not only mark Viotti's editorial debut but are also interesting examples of quatuor concertant, a genre widely used in late 18th-century Paris – as the many prints document – and very appreciated by the amateurs.
With his pleasant blend of galant stylistic traits and pre-romantic attitudes, with his surprising inventiveness and melodic variety, framed in harmonic contexts that are never trite, Viotti concretely substantiates the idea that the quartet is a concerto for the salon, which alternates amiable, intimate moments with solo passages of some virtuosic complexity.

Mariateresa Dellaborra teaches Music History at the Istituto Superiore di Studi Musicali "Franco Vittadini", Pavia. An authority on 18th- and 19th-century Italian music, she published books and essays for Olschki, Ets, Brepols, L'Epos, Lim, Ut Orpheus, Rugginenti, and Marsilio, wrote entries forThe New Grove (2nd edition) and MGG, and edited instrumental compositions by Niccolò Paganini, Giovanni Battista Viotti, Alessandro Rolla, and Saverio Mercadante, as well as operas by Giovanni Battista Sammartini, Tommaso Traetta, Niccolò Jommelli, Marcos Portugal, and Alessandro Stradella. A board member of Arcadia Foundation, Milan, she coordinates the Monumenti Musicali Italiani section at SIdM, and participates in the ITMI (Indici della Trattatistica Musicale Italiana) working group, Franceschini Foundation, Florence.