Classical Music

"We have an enjoyable disc of a range of music from two talented and influential brothers who inhabited a transitional period between baroque and early classical. Their career paths were quite different, Giovanni being born and then dying in Milan while Giuseppe eventually settled in bustling London for the last twenty or so years of his life. Giuseppe’s more cosmopolitan existence is reflected in his music on the disc which displays a pragmatic ability to adjust his style. The violoncello piccolo concerto, for example, is very italianate, clearly influenced by Vivaldi whereas his delightful oboe concerto, excellently played by Hans-Peter Westermann, is more Handelian in style. His recorder concerto is also very tuneful and is a standard repertoire piece for skilled players. Michael Schneider is a distinguished performer and I thought his playing one of the best things about the disc which otherwise contains renderings that are highly competent but not particularly special. He features also in Giuseppe’s Trio in F major for 2 recorders which for me was the most enjoyable work in spite of its three movements lasting little more than five minutes. The slow movement with the recorders’ clashing semi-tones and tones is exquisitely intense.

Giovanni died a quarter of a century after his brother and his two chamber works here (he does not get a concerto on this disc of "concertos"!) were probably written after his brother’s death and are understandably more classical in feel. Both involve transverse flute and I liked the spirited playing in works that I found neatly formed but relatively dull compared with brother Giuseppe’s contributions."

-- John Leeman, MusicWeb International reviewing DHM 77852

Classical Music

Sammartini had a long and active musical career, working as maestro di cappella or organist in as many as ten different churches, yet surprisingly few of his sacred compositions survive.

Classical Music

Giovanni Battista Sammartini was without doubt the most active and prolific musician in Milan for three quarters of the eighteenth century. He was both a performer and a composer - of opera, sacred, symphonic and chamber works - but today he is mainly known for his contribution to the development of the modern symphony in the form later adopted and codified by Austro-German composers. The most original trait in his keyboard sonata works is the pursuit of variety and innovation within a consistent and logical context. The successions of contrasting rhythms produce enjoyable effects both for the performer and the listener. This release offers a significant selection of the approaches, technical solutions, styles and innovations used by Sammartini in his keyboard music. The programme does not follow chronological order but rather the performer’s personal criterion. A pianist and harpsichordist, Simonetta Heger teaches at the Conservatory of Milan. She is an active international concert performer on both instruments, as soloist and in ensembles. Her repertoire ranges from the 1600s to contemporary music.

The many successes of La Rison Anza, the ensemble led from the keyboard by Fabio Bonizzoni (notably with it's survey of Handel secular cantatas), can often lead to Bonizzoni's great talent as a harpsichordist and organist being overlooked. Here, in the delightful Op 9 concertos by Giuseppe Sammartini, we are able to enjoy Bonizzoni's skill in the latter role, assisted by a small - but decidedly elegant - ensemble of all-stars in which feature the violin playing of David Plantier and Olivia Centurioni.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Giovanni Battista Sammartini, main exponent of the eighteenth century Milanese instrumental school, was not only a reference for local musicians, but also enjoyed international fame; he was “the most European character of the Milanese scene of the time” (G. Pestelli, 1982). A prominent figure in a complex era, witness and advocate of those stylistic and formal metamorphoses that marked the gradual transition from the late Baroque, heavily influenced by the violinistic school, to the mature gallant style anticipating the classicism by reaching an idiomatic accomplishment. The award-winning harpsichordist Susanna Piolanti performs this unpublished collection of sonatas mostly edited in London during the eighteenth century, in which the search for and the consolidation of a new language never ends: “I will, I will, but my harpsichord will kill me”, senior Sammartini answers to his customers’ requests. After all, the work of a composer always starts from the keyboard.

The orchestra of Handel's opera company at the King's Theatre consisted of outstanding musicians, including Milan-born Giuseppe Sammartini (1695-1750), for whom London also became the new home. Here he was successful not only as an oboe virtuoso, but also as a composer. The otherwise rather critical Charles Burney praised his music "full of artistry, originality and fire". In view of their originality and quality, which is characterized by a deep emotionality and even bizarre surprises, it is quite astonishing that some of Andreas Bohlen's sonatas were recorded for the first time on AEOLUS as part of this complete recording.

The cantata Della Passione di Ges� Cristo, J-C 124 (On Jesus Christ's Passion), was first performed in San Fedele on 9 March 1759, the first Friday of Lent. This title, which was published in the catalogue of Sammartini's works (Harvard University Press, 1976), does not correspond to the text found in Father Keller's manuscript. The text belongs instead to the cantata Gerusalemme sconoscente, ingrata (Jerusalem, ungrateful and disowning), which bears the number J-C 122. In the catalogue, this number belongs to the text of the cantata La perfidia giudaica (The Jewish Wickedness), which is considered lost and is catalogued as number C-49. According to the current state of research the 1760 cantata Della Passione di Ges� Cristo, Signor nostro seems to be lost. The real title of the cantata, Gerusalemme sconoscente, ingrata (Jerusalem, ungrateful and disowning), clearly shows the anti-Semitism of it's text. All too often religious texts, particularly those concerning Christ's Passion, would unfortunately express anti-Semitic feelings. In this cantata three citizens of Jerusalem, the Apostles Peter and John and Mary Magdalene, themselves certainly Jews, paradoxically express their deep disappointment that the miracles of Jesus and Mary Magdalene's honoring of the Savior should have been misunderstood by the Jews and thus contributed to his death. The cantata L'addolorata Divina Madre e Desolatissima nella Soledad, J-C 123 (The Sorrowing Divine Mother and Most Afflicted in Her Solitude), was first performed on the fifth Friday of Lent in 1759. Three pious women Mary Magdalene, Mary Cleophas and Mary Salome comment upon the Holy Virgin's destiny, each singing a recitative and an aria. Mary Magdalene emphasizes that Mary's pain at the death of her son is made more intense by the thought that he was condemned as if guilty of a crime; Mary Cleophas points to the silent presence of the Holy Mother throughout the whole of her son's life, recalling Simeon's prediction that "... a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also" (Luke, 2,35), this the image of the grieving Mother, the Mater Dolorosa; whilst, in the most heroic aria of the cantata (Non cos� d'Alpe in cima) (Not even an ancient oak on an Alpine peak), Mary Salome considers the suffering Mother's inner strength, so firm and immovable that not even an age old oak on a snowbound Alpine peak or a storm-lashed rock in a sea of shipwrecks could match it. Apparently Father Keller did not possess the original text, since we find in his score the melody of the aria with a Latin text: "Ecce panis angelorum". In this recording we have the aria complete with both it's music and it's Italian text, in the reconstruction by Daniele Ferrari from the original libretto. In the finale the three holy women move forward to a more positive attitude in spite of their sorrow: the text is a paraphrase of the Latin sequence Stabat mater dolorosa (The Mother Stood Sorrowing), whose author is probably Jacopone da Todi. Mary Magdalene's "Non bast� l'immenso affanno" (More than the immense pain) can be found in Father Keller's sources in the form of a contrafactum with the Latin text Confitebor taken from the Mass (it was common at the time to take already existing music and arrange it for different purposes).

Although an extraordinarily active figure in his native Milan, where he served as maestro or organist at no fewer than 11 churches (according to an almanac for 1775), and long recognized as an important figure in the development of the symphony, Giovanni Battista Sammartini remains today largely ignored. In Fanfare 26:3, my colleague Barry Brenesal gave a lukewarm reception to his first opera, Memet (1732), Robert Maxham a somewhat warmer welcome to a set of six Sonate notturne (21:6), and there’s a fine Harmonia Mundi disc that includes several of his symphonies played by Ensemble 415. A few instrumental odds and ends dotted around on collections complete a picture that scarcely reflects Sammartini’s one-time Europe-wide eminence.

He was born either at the end of 1700 or early in 1701, the son of a French oboist who immigrated to Italy. Both Giovanni Battista and his brother Giuseppe initially followed their father by becoming oboists, but G. B. soon established a considerable reputation as an organist, drawing the approbation of Charles Burney, who noted that Sammartini’s playing was “truly masterful and pleasing” when he heard him in 1770. His first significant vocal works were five cantatas, now lost, composed in 1725 for the Friday evening Lenten observations of the Congregazione of SS Entierro, a prestigious brotherhood that held its meetings in the Jesuit church of S Fedele. Three years later, Sammartini was appointed maestro di capella to the Congregazione, a position he retained for most of the remainder of his life. He died early in January 1775, his remarkably active life commemorated by a large gathering at a memorial service held on January 16.

Sammartini continued to write Lenten cantatas for the Congregazione throughout the years he was maestro to the brotherhood, there seeming little room for doubt that some at least of the “Lost: 40 sacred cantatas” cited in Grove’s worklist fall into this category. Just eight survive, five of which, including both those on the present disc, date from 1751. A recording of a further 1751 cantata, Il pianto degli angeli della pace, has been announced by Naxos (8.557432), but this has yet to come my way.

Both cantatas follow a similar design, being scored for soprano, alto (originally castratos), and tenor soloists accompanied by a standard “pre-Classical” orchestra of pairs of oboes and horns, strings, and continuo. The structure, too, is identical, with an opening Sinfonia followed by a semi-dramatized alternation of secco recitative and aria, with a concluding coro or trio, neither of which, pace Naxos’s notes, is predominantly contrapuntal. In didactic purpose and in form they are what would have been termed oratorios in the previous century. The style of the writing is advanced, already very much of the pre-Classical kind that would influence the young Mozart when he visited Italy 20 years later (Sammartini was apparently friendly toward Leopold and Wolfgang when they visited Milan). In the overtures there is something of the “spirit and fire” that Burney found “peculiar to the author,” while Sammartini’s harmonies are a constant source of interest, frequently taking quite bold paths. With one exception, that of the Virgin Mary in Maria addolorata (“The sorrowing Mary”), which is cast in repeated AB form with a concluding stretto, the arias are large-scale da capo structures.

The performances, given before a quiet audience in Milan’s Santa Maria Hoè church, are little more than serviceable, but have the not inconsiderable merit of having their heart in the right place. Ferrari’s direction tends to be rigid in quicker moving music, but he finds plenty of affecting lyricism in slower pieces, although they are invariably taken too slowly, as are recitatives, which are also much too vocalized. The best and most stylish of the soloists is the fine alto, Sonia Prina, who as Mary Cleophas has the longest and most elaborate of all the arias, a 12-minute outpouring of sorrowing sympathy for the Virgin that includes an elaborate cello obbligato part, here rather over-sentimentally played. The bright-voiced, but sensitive soprano Silvia Mapelli also gives pleasure, but I fear that Mirko Guadagnini is one of those all-purpose Italian lyric tenors with little sense of style in this repertoire, the demanding coloratura of his aria in Maria addolorata being way beyond his capabilities. The modern-instrument orchestra plays with some sense of style, but ensemble problems are not infrequent. Overall, this is quite an enjoyable disc that introduces to the catalog two works worthy of investigation by anyone interested in the still-misunderstood mid-18th century.

Brian Robins, FANFARE

Classical Music

The essential contribution that Milan-born Giovanni Battista Sammartini (c. 1700–1775) made to the history of music is universally recognized. He laid the foundations for the Classical symphony: he helped establish the standard composition of the orchestra and promoted independence and individual timbres in his part-writing, while Baroque customs (most notably the basso continuo) gradually gave way to sonata form. In terms of repertoire and recordings, however, Sammartini is still a relative rarity; if you set aside his symphonies and start investigating his chamber music and works for solo instruments, for example, it is soon apparent that many enthralling compositions remain silently filed away in libraries and archives, waiting patiently for the recognition they deserve.

The program on this record ventures into this very partially unexplored terrain, showcasing a selection of sonatas for cello and basso continuo: the collection of six from his Op. 4, published in Paris in 1742, and two sonatas of uncertain date, one in G major and the other in G minor. Although more modest than the symphonies, the cello sonatas display a similar penchant for succinct and elegant writing. Often simple in form, their brilliance stems from the inventiveness of the melody and rhythm and moments of particularly intense and expressive lyricism that are not reliant on excessive ornamentation.

However, it is important to note the confusing history behind the authorship of the cello sonatas on this album. Op. 4 is almost certainly by Sammartini; the ‘almost’ is advisable only for Sonata No. 6, which some scholars believe to be of doubtful authorship. The two sonatas in G major and G minor are less certain. Despite these caveats, the cello sonatas presented here remain an excellent example of the transition from the Baroque to the Classical period and particularly of a singularly elegant compositional style that expertly applies cello technique to imaginative and spontaneous invention. Partly for this reason, the performers on this recording have chosen to further enhance the individual character and freshness of each sonata by using different instruments for the basso continuo line, chosen freely but with strong historical foundations: as well as the more predictable harpsichord, they also make use of the archlute, theorbo, and baroque guitar, in addition to melodic bass passages entrusted to a second cello.

The Cello Sonatas presented here mark the transition between Baroque and Classicism, music full of charm, gracefulness, cantabile melodies and instrumental flourish. Played by the Italian ensemble Dolci Accenti, with Daniele Cernuto (Baroque cello), Calogero Sportato (Baroque guitar, theorbo, archlute), Cipriana Smarandescu (harpsichord) and Anna Grendene (Baroque cello).