Charming salon miniatures by a Neapolitan master of the musical postcard.

Alfredo d’Ambrosio (1871-1914) was born in Naples and perhaps became a student of Marco Enrico Bossi, but he made his career around the turn of the last century once he moved to France. As the composer of small- and large-scale works for the violin that were premiered and performed by virtuoso soloists of the day, published internationally and appealing in different forms to both amateur and professional musicians, d’Ambrosio enjoyed a measure of fame that seems rapidly to have waned after his death, at the early age of 43. The present album has the field to itself (for now) in attempting a complementary survey of d’Ambrosio’s work as a salon musician.

D’Ambrosio wrote a violin concerto, premiered in Berlin, and an opera, first heard in Nice in 1903, but his slender claim to fame rests on the album leaves recorded here, in which he records his friendship and esteem for distinguished colleagues. Aside from his publisher Decourcelle and his daughter Suzanne, d’Ambrosio pays tribute to the friendship of fellow violinists such as August Wilhelmj, Jacques Thibaud and Jan Kubelík. Then there is a trio of fellow violinist-composers, the best known of whom is Vittorio Monti (author of the Csárdás which remains popular encore fare).

There are elegies, canzonettas, ariettas, serenatas and romanzas, most of them just a minute or two in length, all written to be enjoyed equally by the musicians, the dedicatee and by their audience. They are revived here with native flair by the Gran Duo Italiano (violinist Mauro Tortorelli and pianist Angela Meluso), who have made a series of acclaimed albums for Brilliant Classics, including the sonatas of Saint-Saëns (94848) and the music of other lesser-known late-Romantic Italian contemporaries such as Santoliquido (96589) and Scalero (96160).