Sgambati: Piano Quintets and String Quartets Quartetto Noferini & Roberto Plano

• Giovanni Sgambati (1841-1914): String Quartet No. 1 in D Minor:
• 1 I. Allegro moderato 05:51
• 2 II. Allegro 06:22
• 3 III. Romanza (Andante) 04:48
• 4 IV. Allegro assai e appassionato 04:44
• Piano Quintet No. 2 in B-Flat Major, Op. 5:
• 5 I. Andante - Vivace 13:27
• 6 II. Barcarola (Allegretto con moto) 08:45
• 7 III. Andante 10:14
• 8 IV. Allegro vivace 08:55
• String Quartet No. 2 in C- Sharp Minor, Op. 17:
• 9 I. Adagio - Vivace ma non troppo 12:03
• 10 II. Prestissimo 03:30
• 11 III. Andante sostenuto 08:53
• 12 IV. Allegro 06:42
• Piano Quintet No. 1 in F Minor, Op. 4:
• 13 I. Adagio - Allegro ma non troppo 12:20
• 14 II. Vivacissimo 07:38
• 15 III. Andante sostenuto 10:21
• 16 IV. Allegro moderato 16:03
• Total Runtime 02:20:36

Info for Sgambati: Piano Quintets and String Quartets

Giovanni Sgambati (1841-1914) was one of the few 19th century Italian musicians who worked outside the native operatic tradition of Donizetti and Verdi. As a conductor, composer, teacher and pianist, he promoted symphonic and chamber music alongside his younger and now more renowned colleague Giuseppe Martucci.

Records of Sgambati’s music have largely confined themselves to his orchestral and piano works (as well as his magnum opus, a Requiem Mass), but transfers of a dusty 78 show him having enormous fun with the Scherzo of Dvořák’s Piano Quintet.

This set redresses the balance and reveals Sgambati as a chamber musician no less accomplished in composition than performance, within the German tradition that he worked hard to introduce to Italian concert societies: Mendelssohn and Schumann are keynote influences here. The first string quartet and piano quintets are early works, dating from 1864 and 1866 respectively; the latter written in the fairly unusual key of F minor (think Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony) for which Sgambati appears to have had a special fondness, given the many piano pieces he also composed in that key.

The second string quartet (1882) and piano quintet (1876) are more chromatically developed to embrace some of Wagner’s idiom (Sgambati also wrote a concert overture on the subject of Rienzi); and when Wagner heard Sgambati give a performance of the quintet at the Royal Court of Savoy he was sufficiently impressed to suggest to his publisher Schott that they also publish Sgambati’s work. This proved to be a turning point in Sgambati’s career, as well as the beginning of a friendship between the two composers. Roberto Plano’s previous disc for Brilliant Classics, of the piano music of Smetana (94788), won warm critical appreciation; this new disc will likewise appeal to all fans of Romantic musical byways.

Giovanni Sgambati (1841-1914) was an important composer of 19thcentury Italy. A pupil and disciple of Franz Liszt he was one of the most brilliant pianists of his day. However, he was a composer, a conductor, a teacher and a patron as well, composing symphonies and chamber music in a country where opera was predominant.

Sgambati’s musical language is romantic pur sang. Rooted in the German tradition of Mendelssohn and Schumann he was further influenced by his great mentor Franz Liszt and by Wagner (as so many in that age).

This double album set contains two string quartets and the two piano quintets, impressive works of substantial length, richly textured and full of instrumental virtuosity.

Excellent performances by Italian forces, the great pianist Alberto Plano (a Van Cliburn Competition winner) and the Quartetto Noferini.

Roberto Plano, piano Quartetto Noferini

Roberto Plano
First Prize Winner of the 2001 Cleveland International Piano Competition, Finalist at the Twelfth Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in 2005, Laureate of the 2003 Honens International Piano Competition (Calgary, Canada) and the 2006 Axa Dublin International Piano Competition, Italian pianist Roberto Plano has performed throughout North America. Important venues here include Alice Tully Hall in New York City’s Lincoln Center, where he performed the American premiere of Luis de Pablo’s Retratos y Transcripciones; Severance Hall in Cleveland, National Arts Centre in Ottawa, and others. He regularly performs in Europe – notably at Sala Verdi in Milan, Salle Cortot in Paris, Wigmore Hall and St. John Smith Square in London, National Concert Hall in Dublin, and at the Herculessaal and Gasteig in Munich. He has appeared with orchestras in Italy (Milan Symphony Orchestra "Verdi"), Germany (Rheinland-Pfalz), Spain (Valencia Symphony), Czech Republic (Marienbad Symphony), Slovakia (Kosice State Symphony), Romania (Oradea, Sibiu, Targu Mures Symphonies), Switzerland (Festival Strings, Lucerne), the UK (Young Symphony Orchestra), Japan (Sendai Symphony), USA symphony orchestras (Houston, Fort Worth, Spokane, Akron, Illinois S.O., Glacier S.O. & Chorale and others). In Canada he has been soloist with Calgary Philharmonic under the direction of Sir Neville Marriner, and has been soloist with conductors such as James Conlon, Jahja Ling, Enrique Garcia Assensio, Gianluigi Gelmetti, Donato Renzetti, Ari Raisilianen, Kerry Stratton and Gary Sheldon. He has been a featured recitalist at the internationally acclaimed 57th Chopin Festival in Duszniki, Poland; the Festival at Sandpoint, the Portland Piano International Festival, Savannah Music Festival, Festival Amadeus, Wassermann Piano Festival (UT) in the USA; the Encuentro de musica y Accademia de Santander (Spain), the A.B. Michangeli Festival in Brescia and Bergamo, and the Settimane Musicali di Stresa (Italy).

Roberto Plano's friendly and outgoing personality has made him a favorite for guest appearances on a number of radio stations, including NPR’s Performance Today, WNYC in New York City, WFMT in Chicago, WGBH’s Classics in the morning (Boston), WCRI (Newport), CBC's In Performance (Toronto), BBC In Tune, RadioRai 3 Grammelot and Piazza Verdi in Italy. As a teacher, he has given public master classes at Kent State University, Augusta State University, Utah State University, University of Dayton, the University of Massachusetts (Amherst), Boston Conservatory, the Cleveland Institute of Music, at the Alberta Conservatory (Edmonton, Canada), at the Conservatory of San Juan (Puerto Rico), and in all the major cities of Schlewsig-Holstein, Germany, as well as in Paris at the Ecole Normale Cortot, in Taiwan, and throughout North America. During the summer he also regularly presides at the Music International Masterclasses in Portogruaro, Italy.

Plano recorded a CD of works by Chopin, Liszt and Scriabin on Italy’s Sipario Dischi label and a disc of works by Liszt on the Azica label, a disc which includes Brahms Sonata Op. 5 and Klavierstucke op.118 on the Canadian label Arktos, and just releasing a World Premiere CD for the Concerto label distributed in North America by .

Having already earned an international reputation for his fine collaborative playing, Mr. Plano has performed with some of the finest chamber music groups in the world, including the Takacs, the Fine Arts, the St. Petersburg, the Vogel, the Jupiter, the Enso and the Henschel String Quartets.

As a result of his success at the 2005 Van Cliburn Competition, he appeared in the film documentaries "In the Heart of Music" and "Encores" (together with James Conlon and Menahem Pressler) which was aired on PBS stations across the United States, as well as in Europe through the satellite channel MEZZO. In 2006, Plano was chosen to participate in the DVD recording “A Masterclass with Jean-Michel Damase”, filmed in Paris by ARTE at Salle Cortot; and together with Philippe Entremont, a second video project about the music of Mozart, broadcast by NHK in Japan.

Plano was also named the “Best Ensemble Performer” at the 2003 Honens Competition for his performances with cellist Shauna Rolston and soprano Ingrid Attrot. He was also the winner of the "Best Recital" and "Best Performance of a Commissioned Work" prizes at the 2006 Axa Dublin International Piano Competition. In other international piano competitions (after having won First Prizes in fifteen National Competition in Italy), Mr. Plano was a competition finalist at the 2003 Busoni in Italy, a prizewinner at the Sendai (Japan, 2001), and at the Jose Iturbi (Spain, 2000).

Mr. Plano has studied at the École Normale “Cortot” in Paris with Nelson Delle Vigne, where in 2004 he earned the “Diplome Superieur De Concertiste” with First Prize and a special mention: “à l’unanimité et avec felicitations du jurie”. While studying in Paris, he was selected to participate in public Masterclasses with such distinguished artists as Philippe Entremont, Aldo Ciccolini, Joaquin Achucarro and François-René Duchable. In 2003 he earned the International Certificate for Piano Artists from École Normale in collaboration with the University of Florida. Other teachers have included Eli Perrotta, Walter Krafft, Lazar Berman, Bruno Canino, William Grant Naboré (Lake Como Academy) and Bruno Marengoni. …

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