In the last decade of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, two generations of musicians, one against the other, lived side-by-side: one having a late-romantic education, and leaving a mark on the stage with masterpieces like Cavalleria Rusticana, Pagliacci, Andrea Chénier, Adriana Lecouvreur with Giacomo Puccini as a glorious and sound leader, the other being a host of composers born around 1880 (the so-called generazione dell’Ottanta, generation of the 80s, including Pizzetti, Respighi, Casella, Malipiero) who would meticolously commit themselves to get Italy free from the melodrama oppression and set Italy at the same level of the great European countries (France and Germany), equipping it with an important repertoire of symphonic, instrumental and vocal chamber music.

The Quartetto Mitja and the Orchestra Nazionale Artes - directed by Andrea Vitiallo - here perform the first and the last of the quartets by Malipiero and the Sinfonia “degli archi”, three fundamental works to understand how the recovery of the tradition is crucial in the aesthetics of the Italian historical twentieth century.