{"id":8664,"date":"2012-12-21T11:50:23","date_gmt":"2012-12-21T16:50:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/?p=8664"},"modified":"2012-12-21T11:50:23","modified_gmt":"2012-12-21T16:50:23","slug":"daily-album-review-35-the-enchanting-symphonic-world-of-italian-giovanni-sgambati","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2012\/12\/21\/daily-album-review-35-the-enchanting-symphonic-world-of-italian-giovanni-sgambati\/","title":{"rendered":"Daily album review 35: The enchanting symphonic world of Italian Giovanni Sgambati"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"sgambaticd\"<\/a>My last daily album review — and last review of 2012 — is a real ear-opener: a four-movement symphony and incidental music by Italian composer Giovanni Sgambati (1841-1914).<\/p>\n

It’s easy to become jaded about forgotten or obscure music, figuring that there’s a reason for the obscurity.<\/p>\n

That’s hardly the case for a hot-off-the-press Naxos album featuring Symphony No. 1<\/em> (premiered in 1888) and a recently discovered, previously unpublished 1866 score of a sprawling Overture for the play Cola di Rienzo<\/em>, the same work that had earlier inspired Wagner’s opera Rienzi<\/em>.<\/p>\n

A fantastic performance by the 10-year-old Orchestra Sinfonica di Roma under Francesco La Vecchi brings this harmonically rich, thematically astute, expansive music to brilliant life.<\/p>\n

Something new and wonderful appears in the score with each new listen.<\/p>\n

I’ve been impressed most by the sense of carefully measured, seamless progression in the overall narrative that would appear to be a direct product of Sgambati’s years of study with Franz Liszt and affection for and professional links with Richard Wagner (the German composer was a champion, setting Sgambati up with the publisher Schott).<\/p>\n

Here is a composer who transforms and evokes with a multitude of little musical motifs interwoven with a melolic arc, rather than using traditional themes and developments.<\/p>\n

\"sgambati\"The music has opened a door to what turns out to be a fascinating figure in Italian musical history.<\/p>\n

It turns out that Sgambati was an accomplished pianist and composer whose main professional motivation was to see instrumental music reclaim its audience in opera-obsessed 19th century Italy.<\/p>\n

I suspect I’m going to have a longer, salon-des-oubli\u00e9s feature on Sgambati in the near future.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, check out this wonderful music. You’ll find all the details here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

One of Sgambati’s pet peeves was that Italians in his day were experiencing the great German symphonies through piano duo reductions, not full orchestra.<\/p>\n

So, since he’s dead and the world might end at any moment, here’s the first movement of his Symphony No. 1<\/em>, in Sgambati’s own two-piano arrangement, beautifully rendered by two Francescos, Libetta and Caramiello, followed by a proper symphony orchestra playing the enchanting third movement, marked Serenata:<\/p>\n