New(?) issue (given that it's on Brilliant Classics, I would think it's a reissue, but I don't see a notice of the contents elsewhere) of Sgambati's chamber works played by Roberto Plano, piano, and the Quartetto Noferini - http://www.mdt.co.uk/sgambati-piano-quintets-and-string-quartetto-noferini-brilliant-classics-2cds.html (http://www.mdt.co.uk/sgambati-piano-quintets-and-string-quartetto-noferini-brilliant-classics-2cds.html) - including a string quartet in D minor (1864) which I was not aware of previously.
Certainly an interesting release, and it is a new recording. Plano's website indicates that his contribution was done in October last year.
Good news! Is this the first recording of the String Quartet in D minor?
Did anyone buy/listen to this?
No. Should I have? I have the two Piano Quintets and String Quartet No.2 (on ASV), so decided to pass on this set which includes String Quartet No.1...
This set was released in July 2015 on the Brilliant label.
You can still get it from Qobuz.
I have this Brilliant 2CD set. Wonderful music and well plyed.
Acustically I could have done with a bit more blood, or presence... It's my personal opinion... I am just taking as an example the splendid acustics of the Mendelssohn quartets, played by the Emerson Quartet on DGG.
That's an invidious comparison. The Emersons are one of the best string quartets in the world! If only they would record Sgambati...
If only they would record something that has not been recorded a million times by everyone else...
Talked with Phil Setzer and Eugene Drucker over dinner once. They were looking to record a clarinet quintet to pair with the Mozart. They did not want to do the Brahms. I suggested Coleridge-Taylor, Robert Fuchs, Max Reger and Joseph Kuffner. Guess what they chose.....Brahms.
One notes (yes, this is in passing) that the various incarnations of the Borodin Quartet have not been chopped liver either but have had much wider repertoire than the Emerson- and not just Russian and Soviet music, but have performed works by Stenhammar and others as well... one can truly be a 1st-rank quartet _and_ also perform great-but-little-known works Classical, Romantic , E2Cent and (yes) Modern, it isn't true that those need to be left to the "other" ensembles, despite what always seems to be implied in practice and sometimes stated out-right...
I see Sgambati's (2nd) quartet was performed (if not necessarily premiered) January 12 (1893?) by the Beethoven Quartet of the time with Gustav Dannreuther and Ernst Thiele, violins, Otto Schill, viola, and Emil Schenck, cello; the violinists' names I recognize at least. (Musical Yearbook of the United States. (https://books.google.com/books?id=JBsQAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA97)) (Guessing the premiere was in the 1880s, as it was published in 1884 or so. The MPH preface only mentions the London or British premiere of 1897, well after the New York City performance in 1893. She does mention, in that 2010 preface, the 1864 D minor quartet. I should see if my NML subscription allows me to stream this album...)
I know quite a few similarly (and well-known) hopelessly narrow-minded quartet ensembles who are under full influence of their agents. Not to speak about the fact that they would, just for a change, include in their concerts Respighi's "Il tramonto", Barber's "Dover Beach" or Schoeck's "Notturno"!
You could have suggested the clarinet quintets of Marteau and Thieriot...
alas the Marteau/Straesser disc coupling those clarinet quintets is one I do not have access to :)
Ah well. Back to Mr. Sgambati, a more than adequately interesting fellow :)
The dedicatee of the Op.12 string quartet was apparently a John W. Field, a mutual friend of Clara Novello and the composer (see description of a letter from Novello to the Fields held at the Morgan Library (http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/270583005).) (Or maybe that applies only to a ca. 1895 reprint of the quartet which may have brought with it a new dedication...)
I was addressing Santo. He seems to have forgotten the Weber CQ - another potential coupling for the Mozart that had a family tie.
And we seem to have forgotten what the thread's about, Jim...
Unlike the ones he mentioned, though, it's been recorded fairly often. (Though a disc with Weber's clarinet quintet might be better coupled with the composer's less often heard piano quartet, imho. Which I've tried to play, back in my far-off viola-playing days :) )
Unless Kuffner's too early, now he's been mentioned I shouldn't mind starting a thread about his music anyway; he intrigues me. Lots and lots and lots of salon and parlor music, sure sure... but also a half-dozen symphonies, several concertos (including 2 for that aforementioned viola), etc. ... (another thread on Kaspar Kummer for.. ah, hush, Eric...)
To Jim
I did not mention the Weber because it is basically a clarinet concerto with string accompaniment and I certainly did not think that would appeal to the Emerson. As for Marteau and Thieriot, well there is the concern of the marketplace. They are less known than Reger and Fuchs both of whom are at least late Romantic which is the genre as Brahms. Same goes Straesser. All worthy works. One could also have mentioned the Sigismund Neukomm, a good work with Schoene Minka variations in it, but again, the Emersons wanted a late Romantic work to pair with the Mozart and the Neukomm is not that. His works are, there are more than 1000!, are certainly worth investigating.
But back to Sgambati. We think his two piano quintets are the pinnacle of his chamber music. Op.4 seems more fluid, extemporaneous and less forced than Op.5 which apparently was the left over ideas he could not fit into Op.4. Both great works, in our opinion, though and a pity we have been unable to interest more players in them, but not for lack of trying...
Yes, back to Sgambati....Please...