Classical Music Forum banner

Ottorino Respighi

16K views 48 replies 36 participants last post by  philoctetes 
#1 ·
I listened to "The Pines of Rome" at work this week for the first time in many years. Parts of it made me wonder.

About 8 to 9 minutes into it, maybe in the second section, I hear what sounds like blues riffs in strings. I think they could be in fifths even, It sounds so much like how we would expect an orchestra backing a pop band today would sound - very familiar. But this must have been a radical and strange sound in the 20's or 30's or whenever it was written. I know the blues ostinato was just a coindcidence if I'm even hearing it correctly.

I'm also curious if they used bird recordings when this was first performed. They couldn't have had the recording capabilities we have today, so are the current performances better now? When this piece is recorded, does the mixer put the birds in after the fact or re-record the recording of them? It's a very gray area isn't it?

I need to listen to the other two of the rome trilogy, but I only know of "The Fountains - ."
I'll have to look up the the other piece.

I think the Ancient Airs and Dances suites are my favorites that I have heard from Respighi, probably because I love baroque so much, and these are like baroque on steroids.

He was a great orchestral colorist. I'm not sure any twentieth century composer surpassed him in that department.
 
See less See more
#28 · (Edited)
hespdelk: Thinking of the Respighi violin concerto the last day or so I came across this version on Youtube:


03:20-03:50 in that first movement is pure exaltation. I'll get the cd just for that. The sound quality is stellar. I've never even seen this cd. Thanks for posting it.
 
#32 ·
I have been listening to a lot of Respighi recently, and I have found that he caters to one of my favorite things in music which is modes. I also really enjoy his colorful orchestration and rhythmic vitality. Really an underrated composer, and there is a lot more to him than just the Pines of Rome. I have recently been listening to the Metamorphoseon and the ballet Belkis and both are really interesting pieces that deserve to be heard more than they are.
 
#34 ·
Thanks for the reminder. Respighi is a hell of composer, somewhat underrated, yet he's being recognized much more nowadays for our fortune. One of the best orchestrators ever, many works are proof of it (Roman Trilogy, Metamorphoseon, Vetrate di Chiesa, Sinfonia Drammatica, Impressioni Brasiliane, Belkis, La Boutique Fantasque, Études tableaux arranged from the Rachmaninov's pieces, Rossiniana, etc.). Even in smaller ensembles his masterful handle of instruments is not less than magical and effective (Trittico Botticelliano, Gli Uccelli, Toccata, Suites on ancient airs and dances, Lauda per la nativitá del Signore, among others). I know most of his orchestral works, so I need to pay attention to the chamber ones and the vocal output.

Talking about Belkis, this is seriously pure fire! I only know the stupendous suite, not the whole ballet, which unfortunately has speaker parts.

This work (at least the suite) has to be one of the most THRILLING pieces I know. Simply fantastic, spellbinding, exuberant, exotic, with an indisputably impeccable orchestration. All in all, Belkis can raise the spirit even the most depressed person :p

Here there are two recordings I like very much:

Geoffrey Simon has been a great conductor of Respighi's works



And this one, a live concert at the Proms:

 
#36 ·
Belkis is really a great ballet. The entire thing is about 80 minutes, but has not been recorded. Respighi was also working on a second suite from the opera at his death, but did not finish it. I don't know how extensive the speaker parts are; some ballets which have these the spoken dialogue is very minimal. I would be very interested in hearing the complete ballet.
 
#37 ·
Belkis is really a great ballet. The entire thing is about 80 minutes, but has not been recorded. Respighi was also working on a second suite from the opera at his death, but did not finish it. I don't know how extensive the speaker parts are; some ballets which have these the spoken dialogue is very minimal. I would be very interested in hearing the complete ballet.
 
#41 ·
One of the great ''Might-Have-Beens" of Respighi is the marvelous piece that could have resulted from a vigorous pruning/editing of his Concerto in Modo Misolidio, the work I have read that Respighi considered his best ever. It has many remarkable and beautiful moments, but suffers badly from longueurs IMHO that, if corrected by a sympathetic composer/editor, could result in a thing of strange beauty.
 
#44 ·
Wednesday before I went to sleep, I changed the CD in the player. Thursday morning, for the life of me, I could not remember what I had selected, and I did not see a CD box lying around. I decided to turn it into a challenge and see whether I could identify it just by listening. I could not. My notes were: symphony, late romantic influences and also some modernism, around 1920, central Europe. I liked it. A lot. So at the end, I pressed the eject button to find it was Respighi's Sinfonia Drammatica from 1914.
 
#45 ·
Ottorino RESPIGHI: Quartetto Dorico (1924)
:: Barylli Quartet [Westminster '54]

:: Brodsky Quartet [Challenge '00]


Quartetto Dorico is doggedly based on a single theme in the Dorian mode that's presented in organ-like unison at the very outset, and the work in general has an ancient, quasi-religious atmosphere that occasionally brings to mind, however tenuously, the concertino passages of Vaughan Williams's Tallis Fantasia, the Adagio of Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez, and even parts of "Pini presso una catacomba" of Respighi's own Pini di Roma (which was composed the same year). The work is cast in a continuous 20-minute span and divides naturally into four sections/movements: i. Energico - ii. Allegro moderato (scherzo) - iii. Elegiaco (adagio) - iv. Moderato energico (passacaglia). It's an earnest and ascetic work by Respighi's standards, with every element seemingly designed to further the evolution and development of the music in as focused and elegant a way as possible. While the use of the Dorian theme provides an intrinsic ancient underpinning to the proceedings, the work is otherwise rather modern and Romantic in conception. The theme is thoroughly morphed, manipulated, and recast in different moods and atmospheres throughout, being forceful and strident one moment, sweeping and lyrical the next. There's a fair amount of counterpoint to found, most notably in the fugato of the Scherzo and the passacaglia of the Finale, but elsewhere as well. Quartetto Dorico's detractors complain that there's not enough musical substance to go around and that the music is often too sparing and a bit monotonous-I prefer to think of it as nobly economical and austere-but most concede that what's there is well conceived and craftily forged.

I've heard eight or nine recordings of Quartetto Dorico over the years, with the two listed striking me as the most convincing and compelling in their different ways. The high-strung Barylli Quartet brings a trenchant, highly wrought (some might say overwrought) intensity and pioneering sense of purpose and occasion to the table that's very much to my overwrought and pioneering taste. Unfortunately, the old mono recording is close-up and a bit thin and raw, verging on aggressive and edgy/strident. The more composed Brodsky Quartet is richly (almost thickly) recorded and captures the work's ancient modal/quasi-religious atmosphere especially well, and the group's rich corporate tone and suave/seductive phrasing are a balm to the ear, but trenchancy and inner tension are not quite what they might be. (I'm a glutton for trenchancy and inner tension, so a perceived shortage of either bothers me far more than it would a normal, well-adjusted listener.) Most listeners are understandably seduced by the sheer beauty and evocative atmosphere of the Brodsky account and tend to favor it, but I lean toward the Barylli.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top