SGAMBATI
"One of the pioneers of classical music in Italy, and one of its most talented composers of chamber music and in symphonic forms, is Giovanni Sgambati, born in Rome, May 18, 1843," writes Edward Burlingame Hill, in the Etude. "His father was a lawyer; his mother, an Englishwoman, was the daughter of Joseph Gott, the English sculptor. There had been some idea of making a lawyer of young Sgambati, but the intensity of his interest in music and his obvious talent precluded the idea of any other career. When he was but six years old, his father died, and he went with his mother to live in Trevii, in Umbria, where she soon married again. Even at this early age he played in public, sang contralto solos in church, and also conducted small orchestras. When a little older he studied the piano, harmony and composition with Natalucci, a pupil of Zingarelli, a famous teacher at the Naples conservatory. He returned in 1860 to Rome, where he became at once popular as a pianist, in spite of the severity of his programmes, for he played the works of Beethoven, Chopin and Schumann, and the fugues of Bach and Handel. Many of these works were entirely unknown to Italian audiences; he thus became an ardent propagandist of the best literature of the piano. His next teacher was Professor Aldega, master of the Capella Liberiana of Santa Maria Maggiore. He was on the point of leaving for Germany for further study when Liszt came to Rome, became interested in Sgambati and took him in charge for special instruction in the mysteries of higher piano playing. He soon became the leading exponent of the Liszt school of technic and interpretation. Sgambati was the soloist in a famous series of classical chamber music concerts inaugurated in Rome by Ramaciotti; he was (as mentioned before) the first interpreter of the works of Schumann, who in the years 1862-63 was virtually unknown in Italy. Later he began to give orchestral concerts at which the symphonies and concertos of the German masters were given for the first time. In 1866, when the Dante Gallery was inaugurated, Liszt chose Sgambati to conduct his Dante symphony. On this occasion Beethoven's Eroica symphony was given for the first time in Rome.
"In 1869, he travelled in Germany with Liszt, meeting many musicians of note, among them Wagner, Rubinstein, and Saint-Saëns, hearing The Rhinegold at Munich. Wagner, in particular, became so much interested in Sgambati's compositions that he secured a publisher for them by his emphatic recommendations. On returning to Rome, Sgambati founded a free piano class at the Academy of St. Cecilia, since adopted as a part of its regular course of instruction. In 1878, he became professor of the piano at the Academy, and at present is its director. In 1896, he founded the Nuova Società Musicale Romana (the Roman New Musical Society) for increasing interest in Wagnerian opera. Sgambati has been an occasional visitor to foreign cities, notably London and Paris, both in the capacity of pianist and as conductor; he has led performances of his symphonies in various Italian cities, and at concerts where the presence of royalty lent distinction to the audience.
"Miss Bettina Walker, a pupil of Sgambati in 1879, gives a most delightful picture of Sgambati in her book, My Musical Experiences. A few extracts may assist in forming an idea of his personality. 'He then played three or four pieces of Liszt's, winding up the whole with a splendid reading of Bach's Chromatic Fantasy. In everything that he played, Sgambati far exceeded all that I could have anticipated. His lovely, elastic touch, the weight and yet the softness of his wrist staccato, the swing and go of his rhythmic beat, the colouring rich and warm, and yet most exquisitely delicate, and over all the atmosphere of grace, the charm and the repose which perfect mastery alone can give'—'But to return to the relation of my studies with Sgambati. He gave me the scales to practice in thirds, and arpeggios in the diminished sevenths, for raising the fingers from the keyboard—recommending these as the best possible daily drills for the fingers. He also gave me some guidance in the first book of Kullak's octave-studies and he tried to initiate me into the elastic swing and movement of the wrist, so important in the octave-playing of modern compositions. Sgambati's playing of Liszt was, now that I compare him with many others whom I have since heard, more poetical than any. In the sudden fortissimi so characteristic of the school his tone was always rich and full, never wooden or shrill; while his pianissimi were so subtle and delicate, and the nuances, the touches of beauty, were fraught with a sighing, lingering, quite inimitable sweetness, which one could compare to nothing more material than the many hues where sky and ocean seem to melt and blend, in a dream of tender ecstasy, along the coast-line between Baia and Naples.'"