The case for investigating Martucci gets more and more urgent with each work of his that comes to light. The reasons for his fall into neglect seem obvious: he was the one Italian composer of an operatic generation (Puccini's generation) to eschew opera entirely; he had separate and most influential careers as pianist, then as conductor and educationalist, and these activities must have reduced the time available for composing and promoting his compositions; and besides, he died young.
There may be another, deeper reason. His music does have its own individual voice, and an attractive one, but it is elusive and rather difficult to describe without dragging in the names of other composers, thus making him sound derivative. Even the evidently enthusiastic conductor of these performances says in his note on the symphony's first movement that ''though the writing is clearly post-Brahmsian its overall incisiveness is reminiscent of Beethoven and Schumann''. I was more often reminded of Bruckner, honestly, and of a sort of giant Mendelssohn, but even as I write those names I feel that I am selling Martucci short. It is paradoxically easier to isolate the Martucciness of Martucci in the scherzo, where the model is self-evidently Brahms (the corresponding movement of Brahms's Second Symphony, to be precise). But would Brahms have pointed out, with such self-deprecating wit, a shrug of the shoulders and a gesture of outstretched hands, that his theme consisted in essence of nothing but two notes, could Brahms have written such a very odd coda? In it Martucci seems to be saying ''Ladies and gentlemen, there are all sorts of things I could do at this point; if it comes to that I could have made a quite different movement out of this material, but on the whole I think I'll just stop''. And yet the movement is not light-weight not a joke. Both themes of the finale, likewise, are essentially not much more than rising scalic figures—another Martucci oddity: he rather likes constructing movements from similar, not contrasting themes. But then you notice how good he is at sustaining both momentum and interest in what ought to be rather samey music by the use of constant, fantasy-like variation. The slow movement, with its two lyrical ideas inhabiting much the same world, is characteristic: the ideas seem to grow both in eloquence and individuality as he quietly discusses them, one is surprised when the movement ends that it has lasted for nine minutes.
The shorter pieces give fair idea of what the range of the rest of his music might be like (we shall be finding out what it is like: this collection is labelled ''Volume 1''), from the quirky humour of the Novelletta and the warm lyricism of the Notturno to the turbulence not quite hiding something dangerously formidable of the Danza. The performances are a bit over-enthusiastic at times, bassy richness of sound emphasized at the expense of a touch of clarity, but d'Avalos's committedness to Martucci is never in doubt. Excellent playing, and a decent if rather close recording.'