Italian oboist, organist, choirmaster, teacher, and composer of at least 67 symphonies (has many times been confused with his brother, Giuseppe Sammartini, who did not compose any symphonies) – The leading figure in the development of the Classical style, the composer who’s introduced in your music history books as the one who kicked off what we can properly call symphonies to (within?) the classical music world. Be not deceived, they were still more like their older siblings and cousins than the giant works of the nineteenth century, but this is where we can see a real “mile marker,” a true "beginning" to the Symphony Story.     We’re used to thinking of the symphony as the four-movement composition that barely keeps the attention of some audience members before it’s half-way finished, because of how advanced in structure and length it is; however, in Sammartini’s day it still had a long way to go. Let’s not mistake him for his brother, Giuseppe. In fact, Giovanni was the seventh of eight children, and often gets confused with Giuseppe, who didn’t always identify with his own compositions and who himself did not write any symphonies (allegedly). Giovanni wrote nearly seventy.     Only two music students can be identified as those of Giovani Sammartini, but he has an exhaustive list of compositions, including sonatas, overtures, operas, cantatas and arias.     As you might have guessed by the name, the Sammartini’s were Italian(s); Giovani was probably born in Milan, his life-long city. Earliest musical education from his father is plausible, and probable. He and afore-mentioned brother were listed as oboists in the orchestra of the Regio Ducal Teatro (Duke Region Theater?) in 1720. Though most or all of the compositions are lost, Giovani seems to have officially begun composing in the mid-1720’s. What evidently survive(s) to this day [from 1728] are a few cantatas for the Fridays in Lent written for the Congregazione del SS Entierro, the first in a forty-five-year-long story of their kind. Going back to the little “oboe factoid” – one reasonable explanation behind this instrument of choice may have to do with Alexis, their father, being an oboist himself. Just as interesting is that he spelled his last name a lot differently, because he was originally French.Sammartini had a “way of touching that instrument, which is truly masterly and pleasing”.The compositions came rolling onward; in his 30s Giovanni produced concertos, dramatic works, and sonatas, in addition to the symphonies that get our focus in this listening program. This was also an era that saw more than one of his operas, and in which he became the leading figure in the earliest symphonic school in Europe. One of his identifiable students would later borrow movements from two Sammartini symphonies for his two operas. As for Giovanni’s operas, his last one was performed in 1743.Sammartini’s list of symphonies did not earn him the title of The Father of the Symphony; at least, not officially. But he had a part to play in its development and presence in the Western world; without Giovanni the symphony genre might have turned out much differently . . .Applause to the listeners!

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