SEATING
The use of a wide, sturdy, firm, padded, rectangular piano stool is the most suitable
seating arrangement at the piano. A device to raise it and lower it is an advantage. The
height of the piano stool should be such that, when the pianist is seated at the piano, the
forearms and hands, when stretched out at about 70 degrees to the upper arm, should be
level with the keyboard.
SERIAL NUMBER
A piano’s serial number will usually be found stamped on its sound board in figures
about 2 cm high. Serial numbers are usually between four and seven digits long. A
number stamped on the top of the side of an upright piano is probably a dealer’s stock
number. A number cast into the frame is almost certainly not a serial number. It is
necessary to have a piano’s serial number when undertaking research as to when it was
made.
SGAMBATI
Giovanni Sgambati was born in Rome on 28 May 1843 of an Italian father and an English
mother, and he died there on 14 December 1914. He was a prodigy who played in public
at the age of nine. He became a pupil of Liszt’s in Rome in the early part of 1862, but he
never was a part of the Weimar circle. Liszt discovered Sgambati not long after Liszt had
arrived in Rome and he took an immediate interest in the twenty-two year old’s
exceptional gifts. Liszt told Franz Brendel: ‘I have fished out here a very talented young
pianist, Sgambati by name, who makes a first-rate partner in duets, and who, for example,
plays the “Dante” Symphony boldly and correctly.’
From 1877 until his death, Sgambati taught the piano at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia
in Rome. He met Wagner through Liszt and, thanks to Wagner’s support, the publishing
firm of Schott published Sgambati’s music. Sgambati wrote orchestral, choral, chamber
and piano music but is now only remembered for his arrangement of the Gluck melody
from ‘Orfeo’. He introduced his piano concerto to London in 1882, conducted the Italian
premières of Liszt’s ‘Dante’ Symphony, and of Beethoven’s ‘Eroica’ Symphony and
‘Emperor’ Concerto, and performed much chamber music. Busoni wrote that, in 1909,
after playing the Liszt Sonata to Sgambati, ‘he kissed my head and said that I quite
reminded reminded him of the master, more so than his real pupils.’
Giovanni Sgambati’s pupils included Dante Alderighi, Francesco Bajardi, Mary L.
Barratt, Maria Bianco-Lanzi, Maria Carreras, Edoardo Celli, Ernesto Consolo, Giuseppe
Ferrata, Hector Forino, Aurelio Giorni, Friedrich Niggli, Lydia Tartaglia, Enrico Toselli
and Orsini Tosi. Sgambati did not make any discs or rolls.
SIGHT READING