Giovanni Sgambati - Sinfonia festiva; Piano Concerto (Francesco La Vecchia)

Information

Composer: Giovanni Sgambati

• Sinfonia festiva
• Piano Concerto in G Minor, Op. 15

Massimiliano Damerini, piano

Orchestra Sinfonica di Roma

Francesco La Vecchia, conductor

Date: 2023

Label: Naxos

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Review

Giovanni Sgambati (1841-1914) enjoyed a multi-faceted career. A pupil of Liszt, Sgambati stood out among 19th-century Italian pianists for his advocacy of the German school and classical models. This applied as well to his activities as a composer, conductor, teacher, critic, and esthetician. Indeed, his massive three-movement Piano Concerto in G minor from 1880 might be described as a hybrid that fuses the similarly scaled Brahms D minor concerto with piano writing marked by Lisztian bravura.

Imagine Liszt reworking the echt-Hungarian finale of Brahms’ Violin Concerto for piano on his own stylistic terms, and you’ll get an idea of what Sgambati’s third movement sounds like. Similarly, the grandiose first movement owes much of its existence to the arpeggiated flourishes in Beethoven’s Emperor concerto first movement and motives from Liszt’s Hungarian Fantasy. There’s a lot of padding within the solo part’s idiomatic keyboard layout, which leads me to suspect that Sgambati focused more on the piano than the orchestra in the process of composing his concerto. By contrast, Sgambati’s First symphony dating from around the same time is a masterpiece of structural concision and melodic development.

The present recording stems from live performances that took place at Rome’s Auditorium Conciliazione in 2013, featuring the late Massimiliano Damerini, who handles the daunting piano part brilliantly and confidently. Although I’ve often found this pianist’s studio recordings to be musically stiff and sonically drab, he positively opens up and thrives in front of an audience. What is more, the recorded balance is far superior to the Francesco Caramiello/ Fabrizio Ventura/Nuremberg Philharmonic edition that appeared on both ASV and Tactus, where the overly close-up piano relegates the orchestra to the bleachers.

Those who’ve heard Francesco La Vecchia’s Naxos recording of the aforementioned symphony won’t be surprised by his strong podium leadership and the Rome Symphony’s deft woodwind section. Both conductor and orchestra make a splendid case for Sgambati’s delightful, neo-Dvorákian Sinfonia festiva (‘Ouverture de fête’), presented in its world premiere recording here. However, neither Damerini nor Caramiello matches the resplendent elegance of Jorge Bolet’s gorgeous pianism throughout the first and still best recorded version of the Sgambati concerto, which is out of print, yet not difficult to source.

— Jed Distler

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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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Massimiliano Damerini (24 September 1951 – 20 July 2023) was an Italian pianist. He studied piano and composition in Genoa with Alfredo They and Martha Del Vecchio. Recognized as a leading interpreter of his generation, he performed in major concert halls such as the Wiener Konzerthaus, Barbican Centre, La Scala and Teatro Colón. He appeared as a soloist with renowned orchestras including the London Philharmonic, BBC Symphony and Bavarian Radio Symphony. His repertoire spanned from the 18th century to contemporary music, with works dedicated to him by modern composers like Sciarrino and Ferrante.

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Francesco La Vecchia (born 10 September 1954 in Rome) is an Italian conductor. He studied with his grandfather, began performing at age nine, and later led the Boccherini Quartet. At 23, he founded the Arts Academy of Rome and started his international recording career at 27. In 2002, he became artistic director and resident conductor of the Orchestra Sinfonica di Roma, leading it to international acclaim with tours across major global cities. La Vecchia has conducted in renowned venues such as Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center. He has recorded extensively, particularly for Naxos, Brilliant Classics and Sony.

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