Giovanni Sgambati; Joseph Rheinberger - Piano Concertos (Jorge Bolet; Adrian Ruiz)

Information

Composer: Giovanni Sgambati; Joseph Rheinberger

• Sgambati - Piano Concerto in G minor, Op. 15
• Rheinberger - Piano Concerto in A flat, Op. 94

Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra

Jorge Bolet, piano & Ainslee Cox, conductor (Sgambati)

Adrian Ruiz, piano & Zsolt Déaky, conductor (Rheinberger)

Date: 1972

Label: Genesis

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Review

Genesis did well to secure a pianist of Bolet's standing and temperament long before Decca-London took him under its wing. He gives the Sgambati a fiery following wind. Sgambati is attracting more recordings and both Dynamic and ASV are engaged with his chamber music. I await recordings of his two symphonies with avid interest.

The Concerto resonates on the same spiritual wavelength as the Tchaikovsky and Schumann concertos and slightly more obscurely with the decorative delights of the five Saint-Saens and Palmgren works. After an impetuous stormy first movement (almost as long as the whole Berwald concerto), with some hoarse defiance from the brass section, the Romanza is touching and emphatic - replete with many refreshing instrumental details and with ideas of enlivening originality. Think in terms of the middle movements of Beethoven 5 and Tchaikovsky's first piano concerto. The finale is boisterous and if it falls victim to easy bombast is pretty effective in a way similar to the counterpart movement in Stanford's much later second piano concerto. It too is not without fresh poetry as in the piano part at 7.40. The orchestral contribution is a tad throatily undernourished, distant in the strings, unconfident in the woodwind - but nothing to unduly hinder the pleasure of discovery.

Name a single Lichtensteiner composer? Rheinberger is your man. He was less associated with the Principality largely because his fame as a teacher and musician centred on Munich. His half hour concerto parallels the Schumann concerto in its sentiment and pearly ebullience. If it does not have the heavenly inevitability of the Schumann but it abounds in beautiful moments and in sentiment. This is not one of those obscure thin-intellect glitter-vehicles to which nineteenth century re-animative musical archaeology is prone. The strings sound more impressive than in the Sgambati especially in silky calms of the middle movement which, after its Macdowell-accented opening, becomes almost Russian exuding a yearning which is also in the bones of the demonstrative finale.

The disc repays with a rich musical experience - varied and generous combining the contents of two Genesis LPs.

Good notes by Bea Friedland and David Dubal respectively.

We should salute Robert Commagère's excellent work and remind ourselves that these recordings (usually of splendid quality) were made at the excitingly risky cutting edge of discovery at a time when this repertoire was deeply unfashionable.

— Rob Barnett

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Giovanni Sgambati (28 May 1841 – 14 December 1914) was an Italian pianist, conductor and composer. A student of Franz Liszt, he helped introduce German composers like Beethoven and Liszt to Italian audiences, conducting landmark performances such as Beethoven's Eroica and Liszt's Dante Symphony. He founded an orchestra in Rome and co-established the Roman Society of the Quartet in 1867. Sgambati also promoted music education, helping found Rome's first public music school in 1876. His works include chamber music, piano pieces, songs, two symphonies, a piano concerto, and a Requiem Mass.

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Joseph Rheinberger (17 March 1839 – 25 November 1901) was a Liechtenstein-born composer and organist. Educated and later a professor at the Munich Conservatory, he taught many notable musicians, including Engelbert Humperdinck, Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari, Wilhelm Furtwängler and George Chadwick. His prolific output, with 197 published works, spans piano, organ, choral, orchestral, chamber music and opera. Appointed court music director for King Ludwig II of Bavaria, Rheinberger played a key role in shaping Catholic church music in Germany from 1877 onwards with his Latin masses and motets.

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Jorge Bolet (15 November 1914 – 16 October 1990) was a Cuban-born American pianist, conductor and teacher. Born in Havana, he studied and later taught at the Curtis Institute of Music, and was also a professor at Indiana University. Bolet only gained international recognition in the 1970s, performing up to 150 concerts annually. He is especially celebrated for his performances and recordings of large-scale Romantic music, particularly works by Liszt, Franck and Chopin, as well as for his expertise in virtuosic piano transcriptions and technically demanding works, including those by Godowsky, with whom he studied.

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Adrian Ruiz is an American pianist from Los Angeles, recognized with awards such as the Busoni Prize, Michaels Memorial Award, and Kimber Award. He studied under Rudolf Serkin at the Curtis Institute, and with Lillian Steuber at the University of Southern California (USC). Ruiz has performed as a soloist with major orchestras including the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Chicago Symphony, touring extensively across the U.S., Europe and Latin America. A former Chair of Keyboard Studies at USC, his diverse discography includes works by Rubinstein, Rheinberger, Rachmaninov, Ginastera and Grieg

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