Sgambati: Piano Quintets and String Quartets

Giovanni Sgambati

(May 28, 1841 -- December 14, 1914)

Italian pianist and composer.

Piano Quintets and String Quartets

Tracklist:
00:00:00 Giovanni Sgambati: String Quartet No. 1 in D Minor: I. Allegro moderato
00:05:51 Giovanni Sgambati: String Quartet No. 1 in D Minor: II. Allegro
00:12:12 Giovanni Sgambati: String Quartet No. 1 in D Minor: III. Romanza (Andante)
00:17:01 Giovanni Sgambati: String Quartet No. 1 in D Minor: IV. Allegro assai e appassionato
00:21:44 Giovanni Sgambati: Piano Quintet No. 2 in B-Flat Major, Op. 5: I. Andante – Vivace
00:35:11 Giovanni Sgambati: Piano Quintet No. 2 in B-Flat Major, Op. 5: II. Barcarola (Allegretto con moto)
00:43:56 Giovanni Sgambati: Piano Quintet No. 2 in B-Flat Major, Op. 5: III. Andante
00:54:11 Giovanni Sgambati: Piano Quintet No. 2 in B-Flat Major, Op. 5: IV. Allegro vivace
01:03:06 Giovanni Sgambati: String Quartet No. 2 in C- Sharp Minor, Op. 17: I. Adagio – Vivace ma non troppo 01:15:09 Giovanni Sgambati: String Quartet No. 2 in C- Sharp Minor, Op. 17: II. Prestissimo
01:18:39 Giovanni Sgambati: String Quartet No. 2 in C- Sharp Minor, Op. 17: III. Andante sostenuto
01:27:31 Giovanni Sgambati: String Quartet No. 2 in C- Sharp Minor, Op. 17: IV. Allegro
01:34:13 Giovanni Sgambati: Piano Quintet No. 1 in F Minor, Op. 4: I. Adagio – Allegro ma non troppo
01:46:33 Giovanni Sgambati: Piano Quintet No. 1 in F Minor, Op. 4: II. Vivacissimo
01:54:11 Giovanni Sgambati: Piano Quintet No. 1 in F Minor, Op. 4: III. Andante sostenuto
02:04:32 Giovanni Sgambati: Piano Quintet No. 1 in F Minor, Op. 4: IV. Allegro moderato

 

Giovanni Sgambati (1841-1914) was one of the few 19th- century Italian musicians who worked outside the native operatic tradition of Donizetti and Verdi. As a conductor, composer, teacher and pianist, he promoted symphonic and chamber music alongside his younger and now more renowned colleague Giuseppe Martucci. Records of Sgambati’s music have largely confined themselves to his orchestral and piano works (as well as his magnum opus, a Requiem Mass), but transfers of a dusty 78 show him having enormous fun with the Scherzo of Dvořák’s Piano Quintet.

This set redresses the balance and reveals Sgambati as a chamber musician no less accomplished in composition than performance, within the German tradition that he worked hard to introduce to Italian concert societies: Mendelssohn and Schumann are keynote influences here. The first string quartet and piano quintets are early works, dating from 1864 and 1866
respectively; the latter written in the fairly unusual key of F minor (think Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony) for which Sgambati appears to have had a special fondness, given the many piano pieces he also composed in that key.