After CDS 168/1-2, dedicated to Malipiero’s String quartets, and CDS 418/1-3, featuring Bazzini’s, here is a CD with Verdi’s, Puccini’s and Zandonai’s contributions to this music genre, which shows that, contrary to common belief, not so few Italian composers wrote chamber works of this type. Listening to Verdi’s refined Quartet in E minor, Puccini’s somewhat humbler Crisantemi and Zandonai’s dense Quartet in G Major (the latter recorded here for the first time), the listener will be surprised not only by the melodic impressiveness of some thematic ideas (which is indeed a stylistic trait common to much Italian music) but also by the composers’ sagacious instrumental writing.