Leone Sinigaglia (1868-1944)
Complete Works for String Quartet Volume 2
Wawrzyniec Szymański (horn)
Archos Quartet
rec. 2021, KunstWERK, Germany
Naxos 8.574495 [88]
This was the first music of the Turin-born Leone Sinigaglia I’d heard. Jonathan Woolf’s reviews of the first two volumes of his works for string quartet intrigued me, so when a second copy of Volume 2 was made available for review, I requested it.
Jonathan’s use of such adjectives as “mellifluous”, “gentle” and “charming” did lead me to expect music less emotionally charged than the typical work written in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when the works presented here (or at least those with a date) were composed. However, I didn’t expect music so strongly redolent of Mozart and Haydn, or at least their era. I almost felt it necessary to check that the disc hadn’t been mislabelled, but the presence of the horn in the first work clearly indicated this was what it was supposed to be. Now I have no problem with music that is anachronistic, and this certainly is not very early Neoclassical (at least if that is how Stravinsky is often described), but it does perhaps explain why Sinigaglia is apparently better known in Italy as a mountaineer (hence the cover photo of peaks in the Dolomites) than a composer. It was hard enough making a name as a composer of non-operatic works in that era in Italy, without your music not even sounding contemporary.
Re-reading the previous paragraph, I am concerned that I am giving the wrong impression. Sinigaglia’s music is not a rehash of the Viennese masters of the eighteenth century, without merit or originality. Each work has its charms, and the two trios have plenty of substance and style, clearly deserving to become part of the standard repertoire for that combination of instruments (violin, viola and cello). Of the miniatures, I particularly liked the soulful Novelletta.
It is somewhat ironic, given the title of the disc, that the main works – both at over twenty minutes – are the two string trios. The sweet and sunny nature of the music is made a little bittersweet, when one reads in the booklet notes that Sinigaglia died of a heart attack brought on by the stress of being arrested by SS officers because of his Jewish background.
All except the Romanza receive their first recordings here, so I have no means for judging the performances against others. However, they strike me as committed and involved in Sinigaglia’s soundworld. The recording is very immediate, but this does mean some sniffs and other extraneous noises are picked up, but they are too infrequent to become a distraction. The disc duration should also be noted: 88 is not a typo, and it is a single disc.
If I have a criticism of the disc, it is the ordering of the works. I find it a trifle odd that a disc labelled “Complete Works for String Quartet” should open with a piece whose sound is dominated by a wind instrument. We then have eight miniatures (ranging from under two to just over seven minutes), most of which are of a similar feel and relatively moderate tempo (even the Allegro energico is only sporadically at that pace) before the two main works which occupy the second half of the disc. For me, the two trios needed to be the meat of the program, interspersed by the shorter pieces. Yes, in this digital era, it is easy to reorder them, but should that be necessary?
I enjoyed this excursion into such unsung music, though perhaps not quite enough to seek out Volume 1.
David Barker
Previous review: Jonathan Woolf (April 2023)
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Contents
Romanza for string quartet and horn, Op 3 (1889)
Ave Maria (1888)
Allegro energico (undated)
Gavotta (1888)
Novelletta (undated)
Moderato mosso (undated)
Scherzo in D major (1888)
Adagio (undated)
Momento antico (1888)
String Trio in A major (1889)
Trio-Serenata, Op 33 (1906)
