Archivio di 2017

The Liszt Institute Foundation recently purchased a batch of letters, cards, and postcards by Giovanni Sgambati (Rome, 1841-1914), Liszt’s most important Italian students. Sgambati was very active as a pianist, conductor, teacher, composer, and concert organizer; these documents attest to his contacts with fellow musicians, students, and music lovers. Their transcription and annotation provide an opportunity to reconstruct the lives of some significant figures, such as Count Pio Resse and the Florence music environment revolving around the Istituto Musicale; Sofia Buonamici, daughter of the noted Florentine pianist, Giuseppe; another major pianist, Ernesto Consolo, one of Sgambati’s best students, to whom his former teacher asked for information about concerts and sent his own compositions with valuable performance notes; such younger pianists as Aldo Solito de Solis (who committed himself to perform Sgambati’s music in concert, especially his G-Minor Piano Concerto) and George Boskoff; the Polish diplomat, Karl Zaluski, a friend of Liszt’s from 1860 and then of Sgambati’s, who was also a pianist, composer, writer, translator, and music writer. Comparison with Sgambati’s correspondence in the Sgambati foundation at the Casanatense Library, Rome, provided useful feedback to the information commented here.

Bianca Maria Antolini, Giovanni Sgambati’s unpublished autographs