It is only fair to say that this is, in most respects, somewhat
minor music. It is minor in terms of Cherubini’s achievements
as a composer; the great Cherubini is found in the operas and
the sacred music, not here in this early music in a genre he
didn’t later explore - the cover picture of a middle-aged
Cherubini is misleading. It is minor in terms of the music which
the term ‘piano sonatas’ evokes; there is little
here that bears comparison with, say, the Mozart and Haydn piano
sonatas of the 1770s and 1780s, let alone those of Beethoven
from the mid 1790s. In a way the very term sends out the wrong
signals, sets up inappropriate expectations. The first edition
speaks of these as works for the ‘cimbalo’, which
is perhaps too wide a term on which to base any judgement as
to whether this music should be played on a fortepiano or a
harpsichord. Here it is played on a modern piano. ‘Piano
sonata’ perhaps tempts us to judge - not perhaps fully
consciously - this music as though it belonged to that tradition,
rather than to more Italian keyboard tradition that runs through,
say Tommaso Giordani (born around1730), Cimarosa (born in 1749),
Clementi (just eight years older than Cherubini) or, indeed,
Cherubini’s teacher in Milan at the time he wrote these
pieces, Giuseppe Sarti (born in 1729).
All six sonatas are in two movements - marked, with slight variations,
‘moderato’ and ‘rondo’ - and it has
to be said that they are also minor, in their limited emotional
depth and intellectual range. This is not music that challenges
the listener; but it is lucid and elegant and mostly holds the
interest. The fourth sonata certainly does, its initial moderato
bubbling along attractively, with pensive moments for reflection.
Its ensuing rondo andantino is perhaps as near as theses sonatas
come to inviting real introspection - perhaps more than Francesco
Giammarco brings to his playing of the movement. The sixth sonata
is on a rather larger scale than those that go before it. The
nine and a half minutes of its opening ‘allegro spiritoso’
have some slightly unexpected harmonic touches and a sense of
a mind beginning to work in larger structures, while its rondo
has some appealing passage work.
Historically this music belongs to a key - no pun intended -
period in the development of keyboard instruments. Whether the
modern piano is entirely suitable for this music is doubtful.
When Christopher Hogwood prepared a new edition of these sonatas
(published in 2010), an edition stripped of the many pianistic
markings which later editions had added, he suggested that they
might be played on fortepiano, harpsichord, square piano or
even clavichord. The sonatas have been recorded on the fortepiano,
and I am inclined to feel that that is the perhaps the most
appropriate of instruments for their characteristics. However,
Francesco Giammarco, it should be said, largely resists any
temptation to inflate the music, concentrating on line rather
than the expressive use of dynamics. The result is pleasant
listening, even if this is music whose interest is primarily
historical. It represents an intriguing stage in the development
of the keyboard repertoire and in the work of a composer born
and brought up in Florence, the city which played such an important
role in the development of keyboard instruments in this period.
Glyn Pursglove
Francesco Giammarco (piano) 