selecting Sammartini

[calimac]

G.B. Sammartini (1701-75) is one of those hidden gems of musical history. He was one of the creators of the classical style, and the earliest composer I know of to have regularly written what we now recognize as symphonies. His later works, which I don't know well, are more diffuse, but his early semi-Baroque transitional symphonies of the 1720s and 1730s are tightly woven, captivatingly fierce little monsters.

Watch on YouTube

The sound quality is pretty awful, but the performance (this is the first movement of the Symphony in G with the catalog number JC 39) is excellent. I love this kind of music. I'd play you my CD of Chiara Banchini conducting Ensemble 415 in the Symphony in D, JC 14, if I could (they also do JC 39, but I like the other one even better); it's one of my favorite recordings of music of that period.

My main stash of Sammartini is on some old LPs that predate the 1976 standard thematic catalog of Sammartini by Jenkins and Churgin, which is where those "JC" numbers come from. I realized that, due to the irregular or absent work numbering on those old records, my Sammartini collection was a mess: I didn't know which works I had, or even caught all the duplicates. So I checked a copy of Jenkins & Churgin out of the library and double-checked them all; it didn't take too long. Warning: even if you have Newell Jenkins's own 1967 Sammartini recording on Nonesuch (H-71162) titled Five Symphonies, he renumbered them all before the catalog was published, so even his own numbering on the recording is no good.

My impetus for doing this was having picked up a little treasure-stash of 20 early Sammartini symphonies on 3 CDs on my last trip to LA. This is a new recording, so at least the numbers are straight (except that some symphonies in B-flat Major are listed as being in B Major, suggesting an incompetent translation from the German). Unfortunately, now that I've listened to them all, I don't think I like the recording (I Giovani di Nuova Cameristica, under Daniele Ferrari) very much: it's slow, heavy, closely miked, and overly generous with the harpsichord continuo. Some of the slow movements are good, but the fast ones are trying to be London-era Haydn, and it just doesn't work that way. So I'm not sure if I'm going to keep this one, but at least now I know exactly what I've got.

Comments

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Oh, I like this fellow.

[sturgeonslawyer.livejournal.com]

That's a tasty little snuk of music. Thank you.

[holyoutlaw.livejournal.com]

Even I liked it -- thanks!

[ron-drummond.livejournal.com]

Wonderful! I am so delighted that we share a love for Giovanni Battista Sammartini, who is not to be mistaken for his older brother, Giuseppe Baldassare Sammartini (1695-1750), a reasonably fine if less talented composer than Giovanni. (Which is why it might be better to avoid using the two composers' first and middle initials to identify them, as they are the same for each -- though of course you identified which G.B.S. you meant by giving the dates of birth and death.) The two brothers, separated by only five years or so in age, matured into composers who wrote music belonging to two different eras of music (or seemingly so), two different styles: the elder brother is very much a Baroque composer, while the younger left his Baroque roots well behind him and, as you say, contributed greatly to the evolution of the classical style.

Reading your post set stirring in me an intense longing to hear music by Giovanni, as it has been some years since I have heard so much as note by either brother -- and especially to hear again this out-of-print CD, which I utterly adore:

http://tinyurl.com/c9srjr

I see that Amazon lists a disc of six symphonies on Naxos, Kevin Mallon conducting the Aradia Ensemble. Do you recommend that? And a newish disc of late symphonies, Alessandra Rossi Lürig and Accademia d'Arcadia. Just looking at the list has my mouth watering, and my ears, and my heart.

Might I talk you into putting a few of your favorite symphonies by the younger Sammartini together on a compilation CD for me?

Bless you!

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

I've never seen Giuseppe listed with his middle name before, so "G.B. Sammartini" (a form used even in the Simpson Penguin history of the symphony) and "G. Sammartini" (a form for Giuseppe I've also seen) have always adequately distinguished them. I prefer using initials for these double-barreled forename guys, and will, to distinguish them from others of their surname, refer to "W.A. Mozart" and "J.S. Bach" unless forcibly stopped. (Say, did you know there was another J.S. Bach? He was a third cousin whose name was Johann Stephan.)

It was comparing the Sammartini brothers - and also noting that G.B. was writing symphonies during the middle of Bach's career - that made me realize that the division between Baroque and Classical was not one of date but of generation, and in most cases a very sharp one.

Judging from the samples on Amazon, the Mallon recording has good instrumentation and sound, but like many Naxos recordings comes off a little rote in interpretation.