The Società del Quartetto di Vicenza is a non-profit association that has been organizing and promoting seasons of concerts, music festivals and individual concert events for over a century. The history of the association began in 1910 when the writer Antonio Fogazzaro gathered around him a group of music lovers to create a musical association in Vicenza, following the example of other historical associations that between the last years of the nineteenth century and the early Twentieth century had flourished in the most important Italian cities. Since then, the activity of the Society has continued uninterrupted, with the exception of a pause of a few years in conjunction with the Second World War. Born as a sort of private club which included the notables of the city – middle-upper class bourgeoisie and aristocracy – the activity of the association has gradually opened up to ever wider groups of public, especially since the 1970s. Today the concerts promoted by the Società del Quartetto (about sixty a year) are followed by an audience of 20,000 very heterogeneous spectators in terms of age, cultural and social background, thanks also to a careful pricing policy and a scrupulous choice of musical proposals which, depending on the context, range from the “classical” repertoire to jazz, traditional and popular music.
