Quartetto in mi minore op.53 – Quartetto per flauto terzino

Saverio Mercadante’s quartet in E minor op. 53 and his version for terzino flute open the series devoted to the quartets for flute and strings that the composer wrote during his years of study at the Real collegio di musica in Naples (1813-1819). The work offers, in particular, the chance to appreciate a style of writing quite different from that of his Neapolitan predecessors (Paisiello) and of his Italian and European contemporaries such as Viotti, Rolla, Walchiers and Fränzl, since it takes it cue from the quatuor brillant, very widespread in France, in which the flute predominates uncontested over the string trio. Secondly it provides a chamber version of what would become, one year later, his second concerto for flute and orchestra op. 57, without doubt his most well known concerto, still performed today, appreciated for its brilliance and evident verve especially in the concluding rondò russo.