Nenia, Op.18, No.3 [1886?]

Giovanni Sgambati, who was born in Rome and who died in Rome, could fairly be described as the Italian Brahms if only his music were a little more Italian. Perhaps if he had gone in for opera, which he religiously avoided, it would have been, and it is true that some of his salon pieces, which enjoyed much popularity in his lifetime, reveal something of his Italian temperament. But when he had a serious piece to write his models were Germans - not always Liszt, who befriended him in a big way, and rarely Wagner, who was instrumental in getting his work published by in Germany, but more often those on the other side of the stylistic divide, like Mendelssohn, Schumann and Brahms.

In that it has more in common with Liszt than with Brahms, Nenia - the third of Sgambati’s Four Pieces for piano, Op.18 - seems to be an exception to the rule. Certainly, though it too is a lament, it bears no resemblance to Brahms’s setting of Schiller’s Nänie for chorus and orchestra. Beginning in E flat minor, Nenia presents its sombre main theme three times over, at first in bare octaves and then in two different textural guises, before briefly developing it. The climax of the piece, however - which is approached by a frankly Lisztian crescendo of chords shaken from hand to hand - is the entry of a triumphant new theme grandioso marcatissimo in E flat major. It too is repeated in different colours until its energy subsides and the key returns to E flat minor for a quietly contemplative return of the first theme. The last cadence resolves onto a chord of E flat major.

The date of composition of Sgambati’s Nenia, though it is thought to be some time in the mid-1880s, is not certain. Could it have been intended as a tribute to Liszt, who died in 1886?