Giuseppe Cambini has had a bad press for almost two centuries: Mozart told tales of his jealousy and intrigue, and the sheer size of his output – at least 600 instrumental works, a dozen operas, and more – has prompted further suspicion (there is nothing worse than being facile). He composed almost as many string quintets as Boccherini (with whom he played as a young man) and even more quartets, and he wrote nearly 100 works in the fashionable Parisian form of the time, the symphonie concertante. This, as far as I am aware, is the first CD of his orchestral music to appear here.
The two symphonies, from a set published in Paris (where he chiefly lived) in the mid-1780s, are attractive pieces with some quite original ideas, often Haydn-like in its wit and high spirits though never quite as purposeful as Haydn, and shot through with an Italianate vein of lyricism. Some of the movements here, however, are vigorously argued, the first of the F major work in particular. But they tend to lapse into soft lyrical passages, and the momentum flags. That is very much the case in the symphonies concertantes here: the one for two violins is especially leisurely, although it is prettily and effectively written. At the end of the first movement, there is a cadenza leading directly into the Adagio, which is pleasant and pensive but of no great depth. The finale is a galant minuet, in which the violins disport with the wind instruments in the trio. The work for oboe and bassoon, a two-movement piece, deftly exploits the players’ skills but is rather loosely organized.
Still, this is all cheerful and entertaining music; and Luigi Mangiocavallo, using a modest-sized orchestra (strings 5.4.2.3.2), obtains agreeably translucent textures and judges the tempos sensitively. Among the soloists, all of them accomplished, I would particularly mention Maria de Martini for her fluent, well-tuned and sweet-toned bassoon playing.'