Midnight String Quartet Midnight String Quartet The Midnight String Quartet were an easy listening chamber music quartet, consisting of two violins, a viola, and a cello, made up of students (at the time) or graduates from the University of Southern California. They played covers and standards over several albums from 1966 to the early seventies, supplemented by a professional rhythm section, often including bass, drums and guitar and sometimes piano and harpsichord. The Midnight String Quartet made a series of instrumental recordings produced by "Tommy 'Snuff' Garrett", on Viva Records (U.S.), a subsidiary of Snuff Garrett Records. Their First album, "Rhapsodies for Young
String Quartet (Verdi) original performers survive only as Pinto brothers, violins, Salvadore, viola, and Giarritiello, cello. Verdi commented on the work, saying "I've written a Quartet in my leisure moments in Naples. I had it performed one evening in my house, without attaching the least importance to it and without inviting anyone in particular. Only the seven or eight persons who usually come to visit me were present. I don't know whether the Quartet is beautiful or ugly, but I do know that it's a Quartet!" The quartet also exists in a version for string orchestra. The Quartet is scored for the usual