Veteran pianophiles know Giovanni Sgambati (1841-1914) chiefly for his once-popular transcription of the Melodie from Gluck’s Orphée ed Euridice. However, Pietro Spada’s series devoted to this composer’s complete piano works aims to set the record straight, albeit in competition with another Sgambati cycle featuring pianist Francesco Caramiello on the Agora label (Caramiello made excellent recordings of Sgambati’s Piano Concerto and Piano Quintets Nos. 1 and 2 for ASV).
Sgambati’s idiomatic though conservative keyboard idiom is quite attractive on the surface. The Prelude and Fugue and two concert etudes that open the program might be described as Bach meets early Wagner, while a more cosmopolitan melodic sensibility permeates the Op. 12 and 18 groups. Yet more often than not the longer pieces begin promisingly, only to lose inventive steam as they progress. Suppler, more incisive fingerwork would render greater justice to the composer’s thicker keyboard writing (the Serenata and the Fugue, for example) than exhibited through Spada’s choppy phrasing and labored balancing of textures.
While the pianist’s soft-focused, lyrical touch in the Op. 18 Preludio and Toccata compensate for missing panache, his earthbound, pedestrian treatment of the charming Canzonetta and Idillio from Op. 12 are altogether devoid of character. Close-up, dry, and dynamically constricted sonics hardly help matters. Let’s hope that subsequent volumes in this series will bring improvement and more substantial music at that. I’m happy to credit Spada for his informative, superbly researched booklet notes.
