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             


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

REVIEW


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Chandos recordings
All Chandos 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

 

 

alternatively
CD: MDT AmazonUK AmazonUS

Luigi CHERUBINI (1760-1842)
Piano Sonatas (1783)
No.1 in F [10:18]
No.2 in C [11:09]
No.3 in B flat [10:47]
No.4 in G [8:29]
No.5 in D [9:48]
No.6 in E flat [14:14]
Francesco Giammarco (piano)
rec.10-15 May 1990, Studio Sintesi, Venice. DDD
NEWTON CLASSICS 8802120 [67:25]

Experience Classicsonline


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 

 

 


 


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






Error processing SSI file