Archi Magazine
A positive review praising Gli Archi Italiani’s skill and variety of instrumental colours in Russian chamber music and transcriptions. Published in the September–October 2025 issue, pp. 92–93.
Da Vinci Classics
Anna Bigliardi, Giovanni Mareggini, Giovanni Picciati, Gli Archi Italiani, Marco Perini, Matteo Malagoli, Maurizio Cadossi
Physical Release: 27 June 2025
Digital Release: 4 July 2025
13.76€
Programme · 14 tracks
Timings follow the booklet; a matching digital edition has not been located.
Anna Bigliardi is an Italian pianist and vocal coach from Reggio Emilia. She studied at the Achille Peri institute, graduating in piano, choral conducting and composition. Her career combines solo and chamber-music performance with extensive work in opera and with singers. She has collaborated with major conductors and vocal artists and has served as musical coordinator and pianist at the Accademia Rossiniana. On 19th Century Russian Chamber Music she appears as piano soloist with Gli Archi Italiani.
Giovanni Mareggini
Student of Sergio Ruscitti, Conrad Klemm and Peter Lukas Graf. Winner of the international competitions including the Bonci Competition in Cesena and the Yamaha Prize in Stresa, He has collaborated with numerous Orchestras (including F.J. Haydn Bolzano, Teatro Comunale Bologna, Bruno Bartoletti Orchestra, RSI Lugano etc.) before pursuing a career in chamber music and as a soloist. Founder of the Icarus Ensemble, he has performed at major festivals and theaters in 30 countries, with over 1700 concerts (United States, Japan, Argentina, Mexico, Azerbaijan, Finland, Russia, Lithuania, etc.), performing world premieres of works by the most important contemporary composers: Bussotti, Manzoni, Donatoni, Morricone, Sciarrino, Levinas, Hurel, Goebbels, Clementi, Guarnieri, Solbiati, Romitelli, Paris, and others. He has performed in numerous concerts with Giorgio Gaslini considered as the father of Italian jazz, and Jan Anderson, leader of Jethro Tull.
In Italy, he has collaborated with Paola Gassman, Corrado Tedeschi, Amanda Sandrelli, Maddalena Crippa, Elio, Paolo Cevoli, Giovanni Lindo Ferretti, Enzo Iachetti, Claudia Kohl, Lucio Dalla, Paolo Nori, Gad Lerner, Vivian Lamarque, and many others.
He has held masterclasses in Montenegro, Italy, and Japan. He has recorded for Ricordi, RivoAlto, Stradivarius, TGE, Bottega Discantica, RaiEri, Dynamic, Velut Luna, and Limenmusic. He is a professor of Performance and Flute Repertoire at the "Peri-Merulo" Conservatory of Reggio Emilia and Castelnovo Monti, where, since 2024, he has also been a professor in the II level Master's program alongside with Andrea Manco, Giovanni Paciello, Alice Morzenti, and Paolo Taballione, besides being the Director of the same Conservatory. He is currently the Artistic Director of the Teatro Bismantova in Castelnovo Monti.
Giovanni Picciati is an Italian clarinettist active as a soloist, chamber musician, orchestral player and teacher. He has been invited as principal clarinet by ensembles including the Orchestra da Camera di Mantova, the orchestras of Teatro Comunale di Bologna, Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa, the Arena di Verona and Teatro alla Scala and its Philharmonic. His orchestral work has included performances under conductors such as Riccardo Muti, Carlo Maria Giulini, Lorin Maazel and Daniel Barenboim, with appearances in Europe, the United States and Asia. He is the clarinet soloist in Gli Archi Italiani's 19th Century Russian Chamber Music.
Gli Archi Italiani
In 1989, the first edition of the Reggio Emilia Organ Festival, gave the possibility to form the chamber music group called Gli Archi del Festival, which, during the first three editions, offered to the public rare programs for organ and strings.
In 1991 the ensemble changed the name calling itself Gli Archi Italiani and began to work with internationally renowned soloists of that time (Katia Ricciarelli, Renata Scotto, Sonia Ganassi, Andrea Griminelli, Bin Huang, Marco Rizzi, Giancarlo Parodi, Paolo Crivellaro, Domenico Nordio, Cristiano Burato, Giovanni Feltrin) playing in important Italian (Rome, Venice, Genoa, Milan, Catania, Sassari, Mantua, Sondrio, Schio) and foreign (Wien, Lugano, Cornwall) Seasons and Festivals.
With Chinese violinist Bin Huang (1st Paganini Prize, Genoa), in addition to numerous concerts, it was released a CD including music by Haydn, Schubert and Paganini.
Chosen among 22 orchestras from all over the world, in 1994 the group was entrusted to play and recording works of the winners of the First International Composition Competition "Ernest Bloch" in Lugano.
At the same time, small mixed chamber groups have had space in order to propose less frequented literature, secular or sacred.
The recording of the Mozart’s flute and harp Concerto (2011) was the crowning achievement of the first twenty years of activity under the new name since 1991.
In recent years, the operational base has been transferred to Veneto where the group collaborates steadily with prestigious vocal ensembles and conductors such as Mario Lanaro or Pierluigi Comparin.
Gli Archi Italiani
Violins: 1st violin – Maurizio Cadossi and Giacomo Invernizzi (tracks 4, 5, 6)
2nd violin – Antonietta La Donna
Viola: Corrado Carnevali
Cello: Matteo Malagoli, Marco Perini (tracks 1, 2)
Double bass: Davide Galaverna
Flutes: Giovanni Mareggini, Chiara Ferrari (2nd with piccolo)
Clarinet: Giovanni Picciati
Soloists:
Violin: Maurizio Cadossi
Cello: Matteo Malagoli (tracks 1, 2), Marco Perini (tracks 9, 10)
Piano: Anna Bigliardi
Flute: Giovanni Mareggini
Clarinet: Giovanni Picciati
Marco Perini is an Italian cellist and teacher. After graduating in Brescia, he continued his studies with Giuseppe Selmi at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome. A founding member and principal cellist of the Orchestra Arturo Toscanini in Parma, he has also performed with I Filarmonici, I Virtuosi Italiani, I Cameristi Lombardi and Ensemble Garbarino. His chamber-music career includes fifteen years with the Nuovo Klaviertrio and subsequent work with the Trio Fauré. He has taught in Reggio Emilia and Cremona and recorded for Italian and international labels.
Matteo Malagoli, Italian musician, teacher and musicologist he got PhD Summa cum laude, in Musicology, Degree in Cello, Second Level Masters in Viola da Gamba (Rome) and Sacred Music, all with distinction. He also got a Master Second Level in Gregorian Chant. As a cellist he perfected himself in String Quartet with Piero Farulli (Viola of the well known Quartetto Italiano) in Fiesole (Florence). Performances in Europe, USA and Africa as a soloist or in chamber ensembles. He has recorded many CDs (classical and contemporary music) for many international labels. As a musicologist he works about Italian cello history. Member of the British Institute of Organ Studies (UK) he is invited to lectures both on the cello and organ building (Birmingham, Cremona, Milan, Naples). Since 2018 he also works as a Cataloguer of Musical instruments for the Italian Ministry of Culture.
Maurizio Cadossi is an Italian violinist and chamber musician. He graduated from the Parma Conservatory in 1985 and continued his studies with Henryk Szeryng, also developing his chamber-music training with Elisa Pegreffi, Franco Rossi, Dario De Rosa and Giuliano Carmignola. He has performed and recorded with chamber ensembles in Italy and internationally, including the Accademia Strumentale Italiana. A particular interest in Baroque and Classical repertoire led him to found the ensemble Orfei Farnesiani. He appears as violin soloist with Gli Archi Italiani on 19th Century Russian Chamber Music.
Alexander Borodin
(b St Petersburg, 31 Oct/12 Nov 1833; d St Petersburg, 15/27 Feb 1887). Russian composer, by profession a medical doctor and professor of chemistry.
Cesar Cui
(b Vilnius, 6/18 Jan 1835; d Petrograd [St Petersburg], 26 March 1918). Russian composer and critic of Franco-Lithuanian descent. His father, an officer in the French Army, remained in Russia after Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow in 1812, married a Lithuanian, Julia Gucewicz, and lived at Vilnius, where he taught French at the gymnasium. César received his early general education there, at the same time studying the piano. After a few months of harmony and counterpoint lessons from Moniuszko he entered the Engineering School at St Petersburg in 1851, and later studied at the Academy of Military Engineering (1855–7); on graduating he was appointed lecturer, and in 1879 professor. He was an acknowledged expert on fortifications, and his writings on the subject were widely acclaimed.
Nikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov[a][b] (18 March 1844 – 21 June 1908)[c] was a Russian composer, a member of the group of composers known as The Five.[d] He was a master of orchestration. His best-known orchestral compositions—Capriccio Espagnol, the Russian Easter Festival Overture, and the symphonic suite Scheherazade—are staples of the classical music repertoire, along with suites and excerpts from some of his fifteen operas. Scheherazade is an example of his frequent use of fairy-tale and folk subjects.
Piotr Ilich Tchaikovsky: (b Kamsko-Votkinsk, Vyatka province, 25 April/7 May 1840; d St Petersburg, 25 Oct/6 Nov 1893). Russian composer. He was the first composer of a new Russian type, fully professional, who firmly assimilated traditions of Western European symphonic mastery; in a deeply original, personal and national style he united the symphonic thought of Beethoven and Schumann with the work of Glinka, and transformed Liszt’s and Berlioz’s achievements in depictive-programmatic music into matters of Shakespearian elevation and psychological import (Boris Asaf’yev).
(b Vladimir-na-Klyaz'me, 13/25 Nov 1856; d Dyud'kovo, nr Moscow, 6/19 June 1915). Russian composer. He was the nephew of Aleksandr Sergeyevich Taneyev, who as a composer was inclined to the nationalist school. By contrast, Sergey Taneyev’s works reveal a far more cosmopolitan outlook.
Nineteenth-century Russian music often conjures images of ballet, symphonies, and opera, but rarely chamber music, a genre traditionally associated with the Austro-German aristocracy. However, string instruments, particularly the violin and cello, played a significant role in 19th and 20th-century Russian culture. This influence stemmed from both the Italian tradition, through musicians who introduced and taught these instruments in Russia, and the Ashkenazi Jewish tradition, where the violin holds a prominent place. Our exploration of lesser-known chamber works led us to the early compositions of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893). The CD…
Nineteenth-century Russian music often conjures images of ballet, symphonies, and opera, but rarely chamber music, a genre traditionally associated with the Austro-German aristocracy. However, string instruments, particularly the violin and cello, played a significant role in 19th and 20th-century Russian culture. This influence stemmed from both the Italian tradition, through musicians who introduced and taught these instruments in Russia, and the Ashkenazi Jewish tradition, where the violin holds a prominent place. Our exploration of lesser-known chamber works led us to the early compositions of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893).
The CD features three compositions written between 1863 and 1864, essentially tasteful student exercises, as Tchaikovsky began his musical studies relatively late. In the Allegro for String Quartet, the first violin takes center stage, presenting a poignant melodic line that concludes with a somewhat hurried finale. The other two pieces from this period are the Largo and Allegro for Flute and Strings, Tchaikovsky’s only work for solo flute outside of his famous ballet passages, and the Allegro for Piano and Strings. The two-part piece for flute begins with a shadowy and suspended introduction, transitioning into a vibrant, fast movement with a distinct balletic character. The short piece for piano, imbued with drama and resignation, seems to be a preliminary experiment for his later First Piano Concerto with Orchestra.
The three pieces for violin and strings (transcriptions by Matteo Malagoli) originate from various settings. The Melody, Op. 42, No. 3 (Souvenir d’un lieu cher) belongs to a collection for violin and piano, reflecting the purely romantic vein of evocative poetics; the place evoked is the Brailov estate. The Barcarolle, Op. 37, No. 6 corresponds to the month of June in the piano collection The Seasons, where each month is accompanied by a lyrical epigraph from different authors (Pushkin, Tolstoy, Nekrasov, and others). June features verses by Aleksey Nikolaevich Plescheev (1825-1893). Strongly linked to the description of the month and poetic lyricism, it is expressed as a “characteristic piece,” which, according to Schumann’s interpretation, is not a descriptive and realistic illustration but the identification of an intimate and unmistakable character, or the essence of the “poetic.” The same applies to Chant sans paroles, the third piece of a youthful piano triptych written in a similar style to Op. 42, albeit seven years earlier. The simple ABA structure reserves more lively and dramatic movements for the central section, in an expository progression devoid of developments.
Tchaikovsky’s cello works are best known for the Variations on a Rococo Theme. However, the composer, a friend and admirer of Anatoly Brandukov (1859-1930), a leading figure in the Russian cello school (a student of Scipione Fenzi and Wilhelm Fitzenhagen in Moscow), dedicated two chamber pieces to the instrument, both transcriptions of other works. The Nocturne for Cello and Strings is a transposition of a piano piece in ABA form, also characterized as a “descriptive piece,” while the Andante cantabile is the second movement of the String Quartet, Op. 11, a famous piece that elaborates a Ukrainian folk song, reflecting Tchaikovsky’s early interest in defining a national style, an ideal shared by the “Mighty Handful” (Group of Five), themes he abandoned by 1875.
Similar to the Allegro for String Quartet, the Elegy in Memory of Ivan Vasilyevich Samarin (1817-1885, a renowned Russian actor) also features a solo role for the first violin, emphasizing a lyrical-cantabile style. The central section, filled with obsessive repetitions, evokes a feverish and anxious state, which only subsides with the return of the initial theme, culminating in a final coda that suggests a difficult and prolonged farewell.
The crowning achievement of Tchaikovsky’s chamber rarities is the transcription for eight instruments (string quintet, two flutes, and clarinet) of the suite from the ballet The Nutcracker, created by the Italian composer Stefano Bonilauri (1964) and commissioned by Matteo Malagoli. The freshness and lightness of the instrumental ensemble bring a new dimension to the score, creating an almost suspended atmosphere, particularly captivating in the realization of the celesta in the “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy” and the harp in the famous introduction to the “Waltz of the Flowers.” This version, even more than the original, is characterized by true chamber virtuosity.
Alongside Tchaikovsky’s significant body of compositions, this collection includes four pieces by contemporary authors and members of the “Group of Five,” a historical association of Russian musicians who sought to define a Russian national style based on the rediscovery and re-evaluation of folk and Orthodox liturgical music, free from Western influences and rigid academic forms. We feature two short pieces for cello, one by César Cui (1835-1918) and one by Alexander Borodin (1833-1887), true descriptive miniatures with a profound national spirit. Cui’s Orientale, inspired by the vast territories of Central and Southern Asia, utilizes the cello’s timbre to perfectly express the piece’s character. Borodin’s Serenade offers a glimpse of a dance step from a hypothetical ballet. The string orchestration of the piano parts enhances and exponentially increases the distinct characters, almost as if they were originally intended for this arrangement.
Orthodox liturgical music held a deep fascination for Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908). The composer himself testifies to this in his Memoirs, recalling the enchanting bells of the monastery near his birthplace, as well as the monks’ singing and the solemnity of the liturgy. These musical styles, combined with folk song, are evident in his piece for string quartet, divided into two distinct parts: Fugue “In the Cloister” and Chorale with Variations, where each instrument takes the lead in a poignant variation. Sergei Ivanovich Taneyev (1856-1915), from a noble family, was a renowned pianist and esteemed composer.
A piano student of Anton Rubinstein and a composition student of Tchaikovsky, he was the first interpreter of Tchaikovsky’s two piano concertos. From 1885 to 1890, he served as director of the Moscow Conservatory. Taneyev’s Canzona for Clarinet and Strings is one of his many chamber compositions featuring strings. The score allows for a solo cello as an alternative to the clarinet, and the version presented is a faithful reconstruction of the string score derived from the unpublished piano reduction. Taneyev belonged to the “Moscow School,” which aimed to elevate Russian music to European standards by reviving, for example, the techniques of ancient counterpoint, an approach that contrasted sharply with that of the “Mighty Handful” (Group of Five).
Matteo Malagoli © 2025
Gli Archi Italiani. Soloists: Maurizio Cadossi, violin; Matteo Malagoli, cello (tracks 1-2); Marco Perini, cello (tracks 9-10); Anna Bigliardi, piano; Giovanni Mareggini, flute; Giovanni Picciati, clarinet. The Nutcracker Suite is arranged by Stefano Bonilauri for string quintet, two flutes and clarinet. The transcriptions of the three pieces for violin and strings are by Matteo Malagoli.
Tchaikovsky: Elegy in Memory of I. V. Samarin
Gli Archi Italiani · Complete
A listening selection from 19th Century Russian Chamber Music · C01044
Selected awards, reviews and interviews. Radio broadcasts and podcasts are listed separately below.
Archi Magazine
A positive review praising Gli Archi Italiani’s skill and variety of instrumental colours in Russian chamber music and transcriptions. Published in the September–October 2025 issue, pp. 92–93.
Broadcasts, conversations and listening features dedicated to this recording.
Rai Radio 3 · Primo Movimento
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