An exciting young Dutch-based

ensemble, performing on gut strings,

brings flair and historically informed

style to four little-known examples of

repertoire from the dawn of the

string quartet.

Founded while it's members were

students of the Royal Conservatoire

in The Hague, the Butter Quartet

gives vibrant historically-informed

performance focusing on Classical-era

repertoire. Within it's short history,

the Quartet has appeared at several

important early-music festivals. At

the 2019 York Early Music

International Young Artists

Competition, they were awarded a

place in the prestigious

EEEMERGING+ professional

development scheme for young

European ensembles. With this

collection of rarely heard 18thcentury quartets from Italy, the

Butter Quartet makes a thrilling debut

on record. The individuality of each

composer is accentuated by their

mutual juxtaposition. In their booklet

essay for the album, the Quartet

members recount combing libraries

for early quartets which have been

overshadowed by Haydn's mastery of

the genre. All of the composers

featured in Scintilla were famous

violin virtuosi, with the exception of

Boccherini who was a cellist. Their

work as performers was inseparable

from the music they composed.

Italian galant music and performers

were characterized by gorgeous tone,

operatic sensibilities, and elegant

ornamentation.

An E flat major Quartet by Gaetano Pugnani

(1731-1798) retains traces of Baroque

grammar to it's phrasing, while a C minor

Quartet by Boccherini (1743-1805) is marked

by the surges of pathos that belong to the

key signature as reinterpreted by Haydn,

Mozart and Beethoven. Maddalena Sirmen

(1745-1818) wrote six quartets of which No.5

in F major is a remarkably close-woven and

reflective work, hardly a display piece in the

tradition of her teacher Tartini but touched

throughout with the spirit of subtle

innovation we associate with Haydn. Finally,

the C major Quartet of Felice Giardini (1716-

1796) is distinguished by an unusually rich

viola part which may arise from the

circumstances of it's composition in London,

where the composer played his violin with

both the painter Thomas Gainsborough and

the Prince of Wales, who became King

George IV