Ottorino Respighi (1879 –1936)

Ottorino Respighi (1879 –1936) 1 Burlesca, P 59 (1906) 7:30 for Orchestra Andante – Allegretto – Andante – Allegretto vivace Mary Evans Picture Library Preludio, corale e fuga, P 30 (1901) 17: 03 for Orchestra 2 Preludio. Lento – Presto – 3:01 3 Corale. Lento – Lento assai – 5:26 4 Fuga. Allegro – Meno mosso – Tempo I – Molto sostenuto – Presto – Più mosso – Largamente – Lento assai 8:35 Rossiniana, P 148 (1925) 23:04 Suite for Orchestra from Les Riens by Gioachino Rossini (1792 –1868) Free transcription by Ottorino Respighi 5 I Capri e Taormina (Barcarola e Siciliana). Allegretto – Andantino – Allegretto 5:42 6 II Lamento. Andantino maestoso 8:00 7 III Intermezzo. Allegretto moderato – Poco più mosso – Tempo I 2:01 8 IV Tarantella ‘puro sangue’ (con passaggio della Processione). Allegro vivacissimo – Andante religioso – Tempo I 7:09 Ottorino Respighi 3 CCHANHAN 1103880388 BBooklet.inddooklet.indd 22-3-3 22/10/06/10/06 113:57:163:57:16 Five Études-tableaux, P 160 (1930) 24:58 Respighi: Rossiniana and other works from Études-tableaux, Opp. 33 and 39 by Sergey Vasil’yevich Rachmaninov (1873 –1943) Orchestrated by Ottorino Respighi Ottorino Respighi is best known, and further from the truth. His opus ranges from sometimes unjustly typecast, for his three delicate songs, quartets, quintets, preludes 9 1 La Mer et les mouettes (Op. 39 No. 2) 8:56 effulgent and spectacularly orchestrated and sonatas in various styles, and works for in A minor • in a-Moll • en la mineur Roman tone poems – Fontane di Roma piano and organ, to ballet music, concerti, Lento assai – Poco più vivo – Tempo I – Più vivo – (Fountains of Rome), Pini di Roma (Pines of operas, and even an ambitious Sinfonia Tempo I – Poco più vivo – Tempo I Rome) and Feste romane (Roman Festivals). drammatica. The Chandos recording of three 10 2 La Foire (Op. 33 No. 4) 1:46 It became fashionable, particularly after 1945 relatively early chamber works (CHAN 9962) in E fl at major • in Es-Dur • en mi bémol majeur and well into the 1960s, to patronise or admirably demonstrates his talent for writing Allegro con fuoco belittle his music, to dub him a pasticheur, an on a smaller scale and for chamber-sized admittedly brilliant arranger and transcriber of forces. His admiration for composers as 11 3 Marche funèbre (Op. 39 No. 7) 7:27 the works of other composers, but essentially utterly different as Bach and Rossini testifi es in C minor • in c-Moll • en ut mineur a musical chameleon lacking a distinctive idiom to his remarkable musical eclecticism. Lento (lugubre) – Poco meno mosso of his own. A brilliant violin and viola player, a far more 12 4 Le Chaperon rouge et le loup (Op. 39 No. 6) 2:54 This charge is given superfi cial weight than competent pianist and harpist, a pupil of in A minor • in a-Moll • en la mineur by the large number of works by other Rimsky-Korsakov, professor of composition at Allegro – Poco meno mosso – Più mosso – Presto – composers which Respighi did transcribe. the Santa Cecilia Academy in Rome (he was Tempo I These include a stunning orchestration of to marry Elsa Olivieri Sangiacomo, one of his Bach’s Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor, pupils), shy yet with a reputation as a ladies’ 13 5 Marche (Op. 39 No. 9) 3:35 BWV 582 (performed to great acclaim at man, fl uent and widely read in some eleven in D major • in D-Dur • en ré majeur the BBC Proms in 2000) and arrangements languages, Respighi possessed a truly protean Allegro moderato. Tempo di marcia – Poco meno mosso and transcriptions of pieces by Monteverdi, personality. The most lionised Italian composer (senza espressione ma sempre alla marcia) Vivaldi, Tartini, Vitali, Frescobaldi and Rossini. of his generation, championed by none other TT 73:04 In the case of Tartini (Pastorale) and Vitali than Arturo Toscanini, Serge Koussevitzky and (Ciacona), Respighi did not merely transcribe, Fritz Reiner, Respighi is enjoying a musical BBC Philharmonic he manifestly improved on the original. rehabilitation that, long overdue, is now Respighi is still sometimes stigmatised as unstoppable. Yuri Torchinsky leader a composer fl ashily addicted to roof-raising The four works recorded on this CD Gianandrea Noseda scores for vast orchestra. Nothing could be bear witness to the many-faceted genius of 4 5 CCHANHAN 1103880388 BBooklet.inddooklet.indd 44-5-5 22/10/06/10/06 113:57:173:57:17 Respighi – a seemingly effortless melodist seventeenth-century Italian monody, and important to me’. The score of Preludio, chorale theme ever-present. There follows and, even at a very early stage, a composer the Italian instrumental baroque, allied to corale e fuga was composed under Rimsky- a complex fugue, with a magical dialogue who was not afraid to go beyond the musical the ‘modern’ infl uences of Brahms, Rimsky- Korsakov’s supervision. Critics have tended between strings and chattering woodwind conventions of his age and his chosen Korsakov, and Richard Strauss. As Respighi to overstress Rimsky-Korsakov’s infl uence as the chorale phrase is given the full fi nal compositional medium. Entirely different wrote in 1925: on the early work of Respighi, for the young treatment, brass predominant, strings in character, inspiration and instrumental I believe that European music as a whole is Italian, even at this early stage, unmistakably providing lyrical accompaniment. As so often colour, they also intriguingly reveal Respighi’s about to undergo a radical crisis from which stamped his own individual imprint on the in the work of Respighi, the harp adds its development as a master of orchestration it will emerge transformed and renewed. work. The same could be said of all his works, plangent tones. A quieter, diminuendo passage over a period of some thirty years. It is a I believe in the search for a new common whether the brilliant late transcriptions of with muted trumpets prepares the way for the matter for shame and regret that there is still language of European music and that in this Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in D major, BWV colossal, blazing Zarathustrian coda. a large body of chamber and orchestral music quest, Italy can lead the way as she did 400 532 (1920; CHAN 10081) and Passacaglia For a twenty-one year old tyro, this is an by Respighi that has rarely, if ever, been years ago. and Fugue in C minor, BWV 582 (1930; astonishing work. performed in the concert hall or recorded CHAN 9835), or this early, original work, commercially. Preludio, corale e fuga in which echoes of Saint-Saëns’s Organ Burlesca Belonging to what became dubbed the Respighi took his diploma in composition Symphony and Richard Strauss’s Also sprach The years immediately following the ‘generazione dell’Ottanta’ (the generation of at the Liceo Musicale in Bologna with the Zarathustra may be detected, though the composition of Preludio, corale e fuga were the 1880s), Respighi the composer straddled precociously fl orid and inventive Preludio, very title is perhaps an early, intentional productive ones for the young Respighi. He the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In corale e fuga (Prelude, Chorale and Fugue), response to the precedent of Bach. But would show off his precocious mastery in some ways he was an ‘archaist’, looking back fi rst performed as part of the fi nal examination Bach was not the only German infl uence on different genres with, among other works, a to the Italian musical past at a time when it on 24 June 1901. On hearing it, his teacher Respighi. The Piano Quintet in F minor of piano concerto in A minor (1901), a quasi- was unfashionable to do so; in others he was Giuseppe Martucci (1856–1909) is said 1902 (CHAN 9962), composed at around symphonic suite in E major (1903), a ‘Slavic’ a remarkably innovative and harmonically to have exclaimed: ‘Respighi is not a pupil, the same time as the Preludio, corale e fuga, fantasia for piano and orchestra in G minor daring composer. For this reason it is diffi cult Respighi is a master’. shows some Brahmsian fi ngerprints. (1904), a comic opera, Re Enzo (1905), and a and ultimately fruitless to characterise him In 1900 Respighi, then a string player The Preludio opens with solemn chords, suite for strings and organ in G major (1905). by conventional twentieth-century stylistic in the orchestra of the Teatro Comunale in followed by dancing, syncopated rhythms The Fantasia slava appears to quote from terms, whether ‘neoclassical’, ‘neoromantic’ Bologna, had applied for and been appointed reminiscent of Saint-Saëns, strings and one of Dvorˇák’s Slavonic Dances, and there are or anything else. He appears to imitate older to a post in the orchestra of the Imperial woodwind delightfully intermingling. This possible hints of Smetana. The Burlesca (1906) musical styles, but still actually composes Theatre in St Petersburg. While in Russia, gives way seamlessly to an insistent anthem- for orchestra is also partly inspired by Dvorˇák, in his own original idiom; hence one critic he made the acquaintance of and took like seven-note chorale phrase, heard at one of Respighi’s favourite composers at the was led to dub his compositions ‘new old composition lessons with the great Nikolai fi rst stridently in majestic brass, then in time, who had died only two years earlier. music’. There are so many musical infl uences Rimsky-Korsakov (1844–1908). These he more muted colours. A lovely violin solo Add to this touches of Sibelius, and you have in his work: Gregorian plainchant, early was later to describe as having been ‘vitally interweaves with the orchestra, the big further evidence of Respighi’s remarkable 6 7 CCHANHAN 1103880388 BBooklet.inddooklet.indd 66-7-7 22/10/06/10/06 113:57:183:57:18 talent for assimilating the style of other the fate that pursues mankind, the hope at the opening of the suite – and with its and percussion intermingle with Respighi’s composers and even alluding to their work, that animates it, the abyss into which it is dazzling changes of tempo, mood and colour beloved harp and celesta, while tambourine, while never forfeiting his own individuality of about to plunge… This must be felt by the has all the characteristics of Respighi’s xylophone and timpani add to the orchestra’s expression and invention.

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