Gian Francesco Malipiero (1882-1973) was an Italian composer musicologist and editor. He drew on his extensive research into Italian musical history when he wrote his first String Quartet Rispetti EStrambotti in 1920. It pays tribute to the two forms of early Italian poetry in the title but also depicts wider themes from Renaissance music from free polyphony to operatic recitatives. However the structure of thepiece is distinctly modern deliberately attempting to break with the all-pervading Sonata form and the wider Romantic Movement in general. The result is a memorable mesmerising construction that is modern and dramatic butwith a fusion of undeniably medieval flavours.
