A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Cambini, Giovanni

CAMBINI, Giovanni Guiseppe, born at Leghorn, 1746 [App. p.575 adds Feb. 13], violinist and composer, studied under Padre Martini, at Bologna, between 1763 and 1766. In the latter year he produced an opera at Naples without success. Having formed an attachment for a girl from his native city, he was returning thither with her to be married when their vessel was captured by corsairs, and they were both sold as slaves in Barbary. Here a rich Venetian merchant bought Cambini and gave him his liberty. In 1770 he went to Paris, and was introduced to Gossec, who performed some of his symphonies at the Concerts Spirituels. These works, though very slight, were written with the flowing melody characteristic of Italian music, and created a highly favourable impression. During the ensuing twenty years, Cambini produced an enormous mass of music; 60 symphonies, 144 string-quartets, concertos for every variety of instrument, an oratorio, 'Le sacrifice d'Abraham' (Concerts Spirituels, 1774), and 12 operas, of which Fétis gives a list. He was conductor at the Theatre des Beaujolais (1788–1791), and of the Theatre Louvois (1791–1794). In 1804 he wrote some articles in the Leipsic 'Allgem. Musik. Zeitung,' and in 1810 and 1811 was joint-editor of the 'Tablettes de Polymnie.' Towards the end of his life Cambini maintained himself by arranging popular airs and other like drudgery, but even this resource failed him, and his last ten years were spent in the hospital of the Bicêtre, where he died in 1825. His best works were his quartets. He excelled so much in playing that style of music, that Manfredi, Nardini, and Boccherini, the three most eminent quartet players of that epoch, each chose him to play the viola with them. Cambini wasted in dissipation abilities which might have placed him in the foremost rank of musicians; and so little was he troubled with a conscience as to undertake to write some quartets and quintets in the style of Boccherini, which were published by Pleyel, indiscriminately with genuine compositions of that master.

[ M. C. C. ]