 Giovanni Sgambati, qui de son vivant a joui de la reconnaissance de ses pairs (au premier rang desquels Liszt et Wagner), aura longtemps attendu sa réhabilitation au disque. C’est désormais chose faite avec les deux enregistrements successifs que lui consacre la pianiste Gaia Federica Caporiccio pour le label Piano Classics. Le premier CD (PCL10216), chroniqué dans les colonnes du ClicMag en 2022 restant disponible pour les mélomanes ouverts aux nouveautés, voici le second volet, tout aussi passionnant. Le programme est en forme de kaléidoscope. Ce recueil de miniatures, dont la durée ne dépasse pas quelques minutes, vaut par son élégance et sa force poétique. L’écriture musicale de Sgambati est diablement efficace par sa finesse et sa sensibilité ; à aucun moment l’ennui ne vous gagne. Les mélodies, suites et romances sont parfois brillantes et enlevées, parfois légères, charmantes, empreintes de douceurs élégiaques. Et si le charme agit avec une telle intensité, le mérite en revient à la jeune interprète. Par l’intelligence de son jeu, par le contraste de ses tempi, par son sens des nuances, cette talentueuse pianiste parvient à saisir le mystère de ces brèves compositions et nous les faire aimer. (Jacques Potard) An Italian disciple of Liszt, Giovanni Sgambati (1841-1914) was once chiefly for his once-popular transcription of the Melodie from Gluck’s Orphée ed Euridice. His own music has only begun receiving sustained attention in the last couple of decades, and Gaia Federica Caporiccio’s projected complete survey is only the second such project to reach completion. The first volume of the survey (PCL10216) met with a warm critical welcome. According to Fanfare magazine, ‘Gaia Federica Caporiccio plays with a winsome freshness, offering some finely shaped melodies and some insightful rubato.’ Caporiccio now turns to some of the collections which most betray the influence of Schumann on Sgambati’s style, or at least they share the German composer’s capriciously divided personality. The eight pieces of Fogli Volanti (Flying Pages) Op.12 begin with a Romanza which could almost have strayed from the pages of Kinderszenen, but then Sgambati reveals his hand, and his Italian origins, in a gently swaying Canzonetta. The simplicity of the following Idyll is likewise Sgambati’s own, and a fine balance between German and Italian influences continues to mark the suite until the concluding festivities of its ‘Campane a festa’. On a miniature scale – the six movements lasting hardly more than a miniature each – the Fantasie Alpestri return to Sgambati’s origins, or at least an idealised, rural version of them. The ghostly presence of Schumann once more surges up between the semiquavers in the opening Prelude of the Quattro pezzi di seguito before a kind of commedia dell’arte spirit takes over in the ‘Vecchio menuetto’. The slow movement of the suite is supplied by ‘Nenia’, taking its name from an old Roman funeral song. The Mélodies poetiques are cast in a lighter vein, whereas the five-movement Suite Op.21 finds Sgambati at his most Lisztian, with rippling figuration to test out any virtuoso pianist. Gaia Federica Caporiccio’s pianism and dedication is restoring the name of Sgambati to a measure of wider renown; her own booklet essay completes a labour of love which will make essential listening for any piano collector.
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