This edition of the six string quartets by Bartolomeo Campagnoli represents an important step towards a more comprehensive knowledge of Campagnoli's instrumental works. During his lifetime, the Italian violinist and native of Cento mainly published pieces for two instruments (two violins, two flutes, flute and violin) and for solo violin or viola. Much of his music for violin or viola is didactic: Campagnoli published such compositions especially during the years he spent in Leipzig working as principal violinist at the Gewandhaus (1797–1818) and collaborating with Breitkopf & Härtel. With his Nouvelle méthode de la mécanique progressive du jeu de violon, Op. 21, published by Ricordi between 1808 and 1815 and then reissued by Breitkopf & Härtel in 1824 (but perhaps already conceived around 1796), he consolidated his profile as a violin and viola teacher. Though Campagnoli is best known for his violin method and for pedagogical compositions such as the 41 Caprices pour l'alto viola, Op. 22, he also wrote works for solo performance, including concertos for flute and for violin. Among them is the Concerto pour le violon avec accompagnement de grand orchestre, Op. 15, a remarkable piece that displays the latest international trends in the violin concerto between the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries. His other large-scale compositions include L'illusion de la viole d'amour, Op. 16, a late serenade in six movements for scordatura violin accompanied by viola.

Campagnoli failed (or he didn't want) to publish his six string quartets. The known sources of these works are limited to the set of handwritten parts kept in the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin on which this edition is based, and a handwritten first-violin part conserved in the Musikwissenschaftliches Seminar of the University of Heidelberg. The latter is a secondary source that, after careful evaluation, the editor Simone Laghi decided not to consider in preparing this edition. Through this edition a recent rediscovery is made known, since the traces of Campagnoli's quartets – compositions still mentioned by Robert Eitner in 1900 – were lost when the Berlin set of parts ended up in Soviet territory following the evacuation of a large part of the collections of the Preußiche Staatsbibliothek at the beginning of the Second World War (Robert Eitner, Biographisch-bibliographisches Quellen-Lexikon der Musiker und Musikgelehrten der christlichen Zeitrechnung bis zur Mitte des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts, eleven volumes, volume 2 (Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1900), 295). These parts were returned to Berlin in 1997. Therefore the edition offers a significant contribution to our knowledge of Campagnoli, making accessible an important chamber opus of his which had remained unknown for a long time.

Laghi uses the Introduction to reflect on the role of the quartets within the composer's oeuvre and more generally on the frameworks within which Italian instrumental music operated in the second half of the eighteenth century. Given the urgency of examining this still largely unknown context, an essentially philological work on an instrumental opus representative of it is an inviting opportunity for historiographical contemplation. This edition is in itself a token of the current renewed musicological interest in this repertoire. Even just within the string quartet genre, recent investigations have allowed not only the rediscovery of almost unknown figures and valuable musical works (as is the case with Campagnoli and his quartets), but also a non-disparaging reconsideration of the impact of Italian models on the quartets of classical masters, in particular Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (see Stephanie Klauk and Rainer Kleinertz, ‘Mozart's Italianate Response to Haydn's Opus 33’, Music and Letters 97/4 (2017), 575–621).

Laghi suggests that the ‘roots’ of these quartets are to be found in the musical life of Padua during the era of Giuseppe Tartini, a context that still remains to be explored in relation to the string quartet. Campagnoli was trained by pupils of Tartini such as Paolo Guastarobba in Modena, Tommaso Paolo Alberghi in Faenza and Pietro Nardini in Florence; he may have studied for a short time with the famous maestro delle nazioni himself during the last two years of his life (Tartini died in 1770). His quartets thus represent precious evidence for the history of the string quartet among Tartini and his students, and for instrumental music of the region more generally. But Tartini's Padua, and the nearby regions of Emilia-Romagna and Tuscany, were just the starting-point for Campagnoli's career and for the stylistic and expressive ‘journey’ of his instrumental music. After 1776, when he obtained an assignment in Bavaria, Campagnoli worked mainly in Germany. Laghi explains how his quartets probably ended up in the library of the King of Prussia following one of the occasions when the composer performed at court in Potsdam, in 1783 and 1786. Campagnoli's relationship with the string quartet continued through the last stage of his career. Between 1806 and 1816 he was a member (primarily second violin) of the Gewandhaus's professional string quartet.

Campagnoli's six quartets convey his status as a travelling musician. Some of their stylistic and expressive features, although firmly linked to Italian tradition, can be understood through the processes of cultural circulation that the travelling musician experiences. Campagnoli, who established himself first in Italy and then in the German lands, later affirmed proudly (in a letter that is probably authentic) that he was considered by ‘many Professors [to be] a Violin Master with German knowledge and Italian soul’ (x). Laghi observes how this cultural circulation and changing attitudes to national style affected Campagnoli's generation of virtuoso violinists. In the late eighteenth century, national styles tended to blend within the output of each musician. In their place, violin schools were established. These were centred on leaders whose artistic profiles were usually not connected to a single geographical area. This shift in horizons can be also perceived in the stylistic path of Campagnoli's instrumental music. Works such as the Op. 15 violin concerto and the ‘sonate nocturne’ L'illusion de la viole d'amour have a clear ‘international’ orientation. Certainly one can question the historical value of concepts such as ‘national style’ and ‘instrumental school’. From this perspective, the same ‘Italianness’ of Campagnoli's quartets would not be considered a matter of fact, but rather a character to be discussed, delimited and problematized. The prefatory part of a musical edition is not, however, a suitable place for such a complex discussion. It is therefore acceptable that these aspects are mentioned briefly in the Introduction, where they can provide the reader with a critical background to approach the music that follows.

In his Introduction, Laghi doesn't describe the style of Campagnoli's quartets, instead dedicating a paragraph to the ‘Italian String Quartet Style’ that includes a convincing excursus on a peculiarity of Italian writing: the double meaning of the term ‘Adagio’. On the one hand, Italian musicians used this term to indicate a performance style typical of the solo sonata and characterized by a certain freedom, close to improvisation, allowed to the main voice. On the other hand it designated a movement characterized by a calm and regular pace. The second meaning prevails in a genre chiefly intended for amateur domestic entertainment, as was the string quartet in the second half of the eighteenth century. Significantly, Campagnoli never adopts the word ‘Adagio’ in his quartets. However, in their slow movements, all variants of ‘Andante’ and ‘Largo’, he always conforms to the latter conception of the Adagio tempo marking. Campagnoli's avoidance of improvisational style and invariable three-movement form seem to point towards a standardization of the compositional model. This trend is highlighted by the comparison that Laghi makes with string quartets by contemporary Italian violinist-composers from a similar musical background: Nardini, Salvador Tinti, Angelo Morigi and Antonio Bisoni (viii). Campagnoli's approach seems to be in line with his need, as a travelling musician on a European scale, to mitigate the irregularities of Italian style in order to create compositions that could satisfy the instrumental ability and the taste of an international audience of amateurs.

The slow–fast–fast pattern in the sequence of movements, typical of Tartini's sonatas (among others) and still widespread in Italian chamber music in the second half of the eighteenth century, appears only in the sixth quartet. In this composition, however, the model is attenuated by the fact that the opening movement is a theme and variations that includes more than one tempo, and is even longer than the first movements of the other quartets. Otherwise the invariable scheme is fast–slow–fast, with an expansive Allegro in sonata form followed by a moderate movement in ternary form and a fast finale with a lighter character, in most cases a rondo. The second and third movements also tend to be quite long.

The structural uniformity of these quartets doesn't imply expressive monotony. On the contrary, Campagnoli's quartets show a remarkable variety of expressive solutions, achieved through an effective combination of formal cohesion, textural mobility and timbral management. One or more of these dimensions prevail within each first movement. For example, in the opening Allegro of Quartet No. 1, the melodic dimension arises through the dialectical tension between the two main themes, while in the first movement of Quartet No. 2 greater attention is paid to the ‘sound’. Here, the entire second theme and closing area are repeated exactly, with the second violin playing the main theme. This exchange of voices, as in certain chamber works by Luigi Boccherini, highlights the qualities of the texture, which is thus a central element for the expressive configuration of the movement. The major–minor tonal contrast, with the developmental area featuring an episode in the parallel minor key (G minor), animates the Allegro non tanto that opens Quartet No. 3. Furthermore, even if Campagnoli avoided the improvisational freedom of the Italian Adagio, this does not mean that he completely gave up virtuosity, which is evident in many violin motives and characterizes some solo episodes of the concluding rondos.

Masterfully edited by Laghi, who is a specialist in Italian chamber music of the second half of the century as well as a violist (as a member of the Ensemble Symposium, he recorded these six quartets with Brilliant Classics), this edition brings to light music of great interest and opens a compelling research perspective on an area of eighteenth-century instrumental music on which much work remains to be done.