It’s good to see the Sgambati Piano Concerto given another dusting. As the first Romantic piano concerto composed by someone from the country that gave us the piano and the genre, it is a significant work – and a memorable one. It popped up on the ASV label in 2000 with Francesco Caramiello, the Nuremberg Philharmonic Orchestra and Fabrizio Ventura, a recording now transferred to the Tactus label. Before that, the great Jorge Bolet took it on accompanied by Ainslee Cox and the Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra (is this an ancestor of the Philharmonic outfit above?). The present writer is the proud owner of the 1972 Genesis LP signed by the pianist. It still gets a spin occasionally, though more recently via its CD transfer (GCD106), where it is coupled with Rheinberger’s intractable essay in the medium with soloist Adrian Ruiz.

The concerto is a live performance dating from more than a decade ago. I imagine it has been issued, partly, as a tribute to Massimiliano Damerini, who died in July 2023 at the age of 72. It has more in common with the ASV/Tactus performance than the pioneering Genesis recording, most notably in the choice of tempos and tempo relationships. Sgambati is known in some quarters (without much evidence) as ‘the Italian Brahms’, and both Damerini and Caramiello are keen to establish the connection, especially in the finale, which might well be mistaken in their readings as an offcut from the German master (the Sgambati was published in 1883, Brahms’s Piano Concerto No 2 in 1882).

The biggest divergence in approach is in the lengthy, episodic first movement, with its string of memorable themes and plethora of metre and tempo changes. The two Italians both clock in at 23'42". Bolet, with a few small but judicious cuts in two linking orchestral passages, comes home in 20'27" (incidentally, he makes a cut of 30 bars in the finale). Damerini is fine – don’t misunderstand me – but the variety of Bolet’s touch, attack and pure pianistic imagination make this a far more compelling reading than either of the Italians, enough to almost persuade you that the concerto is a masterpiece. Also, despite some wayward string intonation, I much prefer the sound of the Nuremberg Symphony to the underwhelming Orchestra Sinfonica di Roma.

The recording balance is more troubling, to my ears, in the premiere outing for Sgambati’s Sinfonia festiva (1878 79), a lively curtain-raiser (8'57") with secondary material from the strings dominating the principal subject from the brass. Excellent booklet. Short playing time (50'24").