Carlo Andrea Gambini (22 October 1819 — 14 February 1865)
Carlo Gambini was born in Genua, Italy. His talent was recognized at an early age and he developed into one of the most prominent concert pianists of his time.
As a composer Gambini was a son of his time, his style is highly romantic, influenced by the Italian opera and its grandiloquence, pomp and sentiment. Gambini’s friendship with the famous organ builder family Lingiardi led him to compose extensively for the organ.
Gambini was passed over by the compilers of Grove’s dictionary but he was no organ specialist but a musician of diverse talents who composed for the stage, with at least three operas to his name, the concert-hall, including symphonic tone-poems and concert-overtures.
His extant output, however, centres on church music. L’organo moderno Op.106 is a collection of 24 versets for organ: brief pieces of hugely varied character, designed as inserts to cover or accompany variousstages of the Mass that would otherwise be silent. Gambini is an imaginative composer for the organ’s timbral possibilities: flutes, horns, bassoons, and Vox Humana stops are all given solo spots.
Gambini arranged for organ The Four Seasons, his Le Quattro Stagioni Op.128 and was composed at a time when Vivaldi’s now ubiquitous cycle of concertos was completely unknown.
This is from a group of ten pieces arranged for the English organ by W. T. Best.
Two CDs of his music can be heard here and most of it sounds very different to this piece. This is number 20 in the group below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fEXqYIcrkM&list=PL_qM1lclHDwXy-To5GNL1PpBM1QyKhGIb&index=10
Music attached below.