MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2024
60,000 reviews
... and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             


CD REVIEW

Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger

alternatively
AmazonUK

 

Giovanni Battista Sammartini (c.1700-1775)
Symphonies
Sonata in C Major a 4o Stromenti JC7. (1724-39) [7:50]
Avertura in D Major 4o Stromenti JC14. (1724-39) [5:52]
Overtura in F Major à 6 JC33. (1724-39) [6:36]
Sonata in A Major a 4o Stromenti JC65. (1730-8) [9:01]
Overtura in F Major a 4o Stromenti JC36. (1724-39) [9:51]
Overtura in C Minor a 4o Stromenti JC9. (1724-39) [8:56]
Sinfonia in G Major a 4o Stromenti JC39. (1724-39) [10:04]
Sinfonia in D Major per Violino, Viola e Basso JC15. (1724-39) [4:40]
Overtura in F Major a 4o Stromenti JC37. (1724-39) [9:53]
Orchestra da Camera Milano Classica/Roberto Gini
rec. Palazzina Liberty, Milan, Italy, 12-15 January 2005. DDD.
DYNAMIC CDS460 [72:56] 

 

Experience Classicsonline


Giovanni Battista Sammartini was the more famous of two musical Milanese brothers and one of the most influential agents in the development of the symphony. Roberto Gini has already recorded some of Sammartini’s Symphonies and Overtures for Dynamic (CDS414). This new recording presents nine of the symphonies from his early period (1724-39) as part of a planned project to record his entire symphonic repertoire. Though variously designated Overtura, Avertura, Sonata or Sinfonia, they all follow a three-movement fast-slow-fast format, with the exception of the Sinfonia in G, JC39, which has a four-movement format – not quite the precursor of the four-movement classical symphony, since the Minuetto forms the final movement, and is possibly tacked on from another work.
 

I am not sure why these recordings from 2005 have taken so long to be released. Everything about the finished product is inviting, from the moment one picks up the CD with its cover reproduction of Phaëton Driving Apollo’s Chariot. I mistook this for a Tiepolo at first, but it is by Nicolas Bertin, 1720, thus contemporary with the music. The painting is also reproduced on the label and on the front of the booklet, which is housed in a pocket in the well-designed triptych sleeve. The promise offered by the packaging is not belied by the music, the performance or the recording contained within. 

I last encountered Sammartini’s music on a Virgin Classics recording entitled Improvisata: Sinfonie con titoli (3 63430 2 – see review). His Sinfonia in g minor, JC57, was one of the outstanding works on that recording, pre-dating (and influencing?) Haydn’s Sturm und Drang style – an energetic work which received an energetic performance from Europa Galante and Fabio Biondi. JW also found this an attractive work – see his review.

That same energy is apparent from the beginning of the new CD, as if Sammartini had taken the more vigorous aspects of Vivaldi and cranked them up a notch or two. If the Bertin painting on the cover leads the prospective purchaser to expect tame music in the galant style, it will prove misleading. Some of the music is not very different from Vivaldi – there are even odd echoes of passages from The Four Seasons and other works; the finale of JC36 offers several such instances – but much of it is so like early and mid-period Haydn as to make one wonder that he referred to Sammartini as a mere ‘scribbler’. Compare the opening movement of JC33, track 7, with Haydn’s mid-period symphonies. 

Modern Italian interpreters of their own baroque legacy tend to prefer a more forceful style than such predecessors as I Musici, and Gini’s performances here are no exception. Not that the tempi are extreme: vigorous rather than breakneck – in fact, in the two works in common between the present recording and Kevin Mallon’s with the Aradia Ensemble on Naxos (8.557298), Mallon is the faster: a whole minute faster in JC36, 21 seconds faster in JC9. I am, in general, an admirer of Mallon’s performances, so I listened particularly intently to Gini’s version of JC36, to see where the discrepancy might arise. No sign of sluggishness in the opening vivace – a fastish opening, followed by a more relaxed but by no means slow tempo for the rest of the movement, with the music allowed to relax where appropriate (4:35 against Mallon’s 2:17). 

The andante, too, seems to me to strike just about the right ‘walking’ tempo; this is Sammartini at his most charming and the charm – a wistful charm – comes over in Gini’s performance (3:36 against Mallon’s 5:00). The final allegro is as lively as I could wish it (1:38 against Mallon’s 1:35). I can only assume that the huge discrepancy in the times for the first movement is due to differences over the observation of repeats. The brief extract available on the classicsonline website indicates that Mallon’s tempo for the movement is lively, but the extract is too short to judge and I cannot locate a review of this recording on MusicWeb. 

The notes in the Dynamic booklet single out the opening of JC9 as an example of sonorous attack in Sammartini’s style, an observation neatly exemplified by the performance. I might have liked just a shade sharper opening but as the movement develops the playing is all that it should be. The affetuoso slow movement of this work is one of the most affective on this CD and it, too, receives a performance to match without trying to squeeze too much emotion out of it. The final allegro is a good example of Sammartini’s impetuous style; no complaints about Gini’s interpretation. As with JC36, for all my respect for those performances of Kevin Mallon’s which I have heard, I cannot imagine that he betters Gini’s interpretation of this work. 

The recorded sound is good – a little heavier than we are used to for period ensembles. I am grateful to an Italian reader who emailed us to confirm that the Orchestra da Camera Milano Classico employs modern instruments, though Roberto Gini's experience as a conductor of early music blurs the distinction somewhat. I agree with this correspondent that Dynamic should have offered some information about the orchestra in the booklet. The illustration in the gatefold shows Roberto Gini with a harpsichord in the background. If there is a harpsichord on this recording, it is virtually inaudible.

The notes are adequate but their multi-language format means that they are rather brief. The English translation is generally idiomatic but tends to assume that the reader will understand without further explanation such expressions as ‘ternary’. These Dynamic notes could usefully be supplemented by Keith Anderson’s for Naxos – generously made available free of charge on their website. 

The quality of this recording encourages me to investigate Gini’s other Sammartini CD, to which I have referred above, and perhaps also his three Monteverdi recordings advertised in the packaging of the present CD. Sammartini’s music may not be as profound as the music of his pupil Glück and the composers who followed him, but it is unfailingly attractive and often engaging at a deeper level. If you like Vivaldi and want to see where the next generation took his music, you ought to try it.

Brian Wilson




 


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 

 


EXPLORE MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL

Making a Donation to MusicWeb

Writing CD reviews for MWI

About MWI
Who we are, where we have come from and how we do it.

Site Map

How to find a review

How to find articles on MusicWeb
Listed in date order

Review Indexes
   By Label
      Select a label and all reviews are listed in Catalogue order
   By Masterwork
            Links from composer names (eg Sibelius) are to resource pages with links to the review indexes for the individual works as well as other resources.

Themed Review pages

Jazz reviews

 

Discographies
   Composer
      Composer surveys
   National
      Unique to MusicWeb -
a comprehensive listing of all LP and CD recordings of given works
.
Prepared by Michael Herman

The Collector’s Guide to Gramophone Company Record Labels 1898 - 1925
Howard Friedman

Book Reviews

Complete Books
We have a number of out of print complete books on-line

Interviews
With Composers, Conductors, Singers, Instumentalists and others
Includes those on the Seen and Heard site

Nostalgia

Nostalgia CD reviews

Records Of The Year
Each reviewer is given the opportunity to select the best of the releases

Monthly Best Buys
Recordings of the Month and Bargains of the Month

Comment
Arthur Butterworth Writes

An occasional column

Phil Scowcroft's Garlands
British Light Music articles

Classical blogs
A listing of Classical Music Blogs external to MusicWeb International

Reviewers Logs
What they have been listening to for pleasure

Announcements

 

Community
Bulletin Board

Give your opinions or seek answers

Reviewers
Past and present

Helpers invited!

Resources
How Did I Miss That?

Currently suspended but there are a lot there with sound clips


Composer Resources

British Composers

British Light Music Composers

Other composers

Film Music (Archive)
Film Music on the Web (Closed in December 2006)

Programme Notes
For concert organizers

External sites
British Music Society
The BBC Proms
Orchestra Sites
Recording Companies & Retailers
Online Music
Agents & Marketing
Publishers
Other links
Newsgroups
Web News sites etc

PotPourri
A pot-pourri of articles

MW Listening Room
MW Office

Advice to Windows Vista users  
Questionnaire    
Site History  
What they say about us
What we say about us!
Where to get help on the Internet
CD orders By Special Request
Graphics archive
Currency Converter
Dictionary
Magazines
Newsfeed  
Web Ring
Translation Service

Rules for potential reviewers :-)
Do Not Go Here!
April Fools




Return to Review Index

Untitled Document


Reviews from previous months
Join the mailing list and receive a hyperlinked weekly update on the discs reviewed. details
We welcome feedback on our reviews. Please use the Bulletin Board
Please paste in the first line of your comments the URL of the review to which you refer.