Giuseppe Maria Gioacchino Cambini (1746 - 1825) was an
Italian composer and violinist. Information about his
life is scarcely traceable. Louis-Gabriel Michaud,
French scholar and François-Joseph Fétis, Belgian
musicologist, drafted his biography, and Cambini
himself speaks about his past in an article published
in Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung in 1804. However,
all of these documents are full of errors and,
therefore, need to be verified. It is not possible to
confirm his personal data (only...(+)
Giuseppe Maria Gioacchino Cambini (1746 - 1825) was an
Italian composer and violinist. Information about his
life is scarcely traceable. Louis-Gabriel Michaud,
French scholar and François-Joseph Fétis, Belgian
musicologist, drafted his biography, and Cambini
himself speaks about his past in an article published
in Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung in 1804. However,
all of these documents are full of errors and,
therefore, need to be verified. It is not possible to
confirm his personal data (only Fétis indicates his
date of birth), nor his first studies. It is possible
he is connected in some way to father Giovanni Battista
Martini, and, more possibly to Filippo Manfredi, who
was almost certainly his violin teacher. Fétis wrote
about his unfortunate operatic debut in Naples in 1766,
after which, during his return to Livorno by the sea,
Cambini was kidnapped by pirates, who treated him
terribly until his liberation by a Venetian aristocrat.
The narration by the Belgian holds much resemblance to
a story in the poetic periodical Correspondance
littéraire, philosophique et critique, a fact that
reduces its reliability. In the article found in
Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung in 1804, Cambini claims
to have played the viola in a string quartet with Luigi
Boccherini, Pietro Nardini and his teacher Manfredi for
six months in 1767. If what he says is true, this
quartet would represent the first formation of this
emerging genre in Italy, if not in all of Europe. For
many years, this information fostered a gigantic legend
about the importance of the role of Cambini in defining
the string quartet. Actually, he was one of the many
(even if one of the most prolific) who, in the same
period, contributed to the development of the
genre.
There proves to be more that 600 examples of works by
Cambini diffused throughout the world. More than 300
consist of printed editions, 250 are in manuscript
copies, and about 100 are proven autographs. We have
received only his instrumental music. In fact, only the
music of Le Tuteur avare, written in collaboration with
Pasquale Anfossi in 1787 (today preserved at the
Bibliothèque Municipale de Lille) remains of his
operas. For many years, there was a symphony that was
considered to be his, but in reality it is by Joseph
Martin Kraus for Boyer publishers. From 1784 to 1786,
the publisher released the work of the then unknown
Kraus under the name of the more famous Cambini in
order to sell more copies, causing the misunderstanding
of attribution, which was not resolved until 1989.
Source: Wikipedia
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giuseppe_Cambini)
Although originally written for Wind Quintet, I created
this Interpretation of the Sonata I in Bb Major for
Flute & Piano.
SHEET MUSIC