Sonate D’Intavolatura di Leuto

Da Vinci Classics, 2021

Little is known about the life of Giovanni Zamboni Romano. Busoni calls him "a very good contrapuntist of music and virtuoso player of the theorbo, lute, cymbal, guitar, mandola, mandolin, and a good grinder of oriental stones, that is, jewels". There is very little certain information beyond that, not even the dates of his birth and death.

The eleven works in Sonate d'Intavolatura di Leuto, Opera Prima (Lucca, 1718) are known to make up the last printed publication for lute in the form of Italian tablature. This practice of writing music was later abandoned in favor of a more modern method of writing based on the use of the pentagram.

Zamboni’s lute work, of which unfortunately only one book is known to us, contains music of the highest quality. The evident Corellian influences are frequently combined with incursions of the galant style and French movements.