COMPOSERS: Gb Sammartini
LABELS: Naxos
ALBUM TITLE: GB Sammartini
WORKS: Il pianot degli Angeli della Pace
PERFORMER: Silvia Mapelli, Ainhoa Soraluze, Giorgio TiboniCapriccio Italiano Ensemble,Daniele Ferrari
CATALOGUE NO: 8.557432
Unlike his elder brother Giuseppe,
who travelled and who became
Handel’s oboist in London,
Giovanni Battista Sammartini
remained in Milan all his life.
Giovanni Battista’s style embraces
the early and mid-Classical idiom
developed in part by the Mannheim
symphonists. Indeed he played an
important part in the formation of it.
The relatively few discs of his music
that have been issued in the past have
featured mainly his chamber music
and his symphonies. Now comes
a recording, claiming with some
justification to be a world premiere,
of Sammartini’s sacred cantata Il
pianto degli Angeli della Pace (The
Tears of the Angels of Peace).
It is an attractive work with arias,
terzetti and a pleasing introductory
sinfonia. Alas, notwithstanding a
handful of strong contributions,
notably from Silvia Mapelli and
an unidentified viola player who
provides an eloquent obbligato
in her aria ‘Rasserenate il ciglio’,
the performance is rough and not
always very ready. Though the
vocal timbre of the solo tenor is
hard and somewhat unyielding the
chief culprit here is the scratchy and
seemingly under-prepared chamber
orchestra; indeed a passage in the
above-mentioned aria is so ill-tuned
and ragged that I am astonished
it was not rectified. A pity, since
Sammartini’s cantata is well worth
the interest that these artists have
taken in reviving it, the three
extended arias being of particular
merit. The Symphony appended to
the main work fares only marginally
better. Nicholas Anderson