Ottorino Respighi

Born: 9 July 1879, Bologna (Italy)
Died: 18 April 1936, Roma (Italy)

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This man wrote some of the most beautiful and moving classical music. The best piece is entitled "The Pines of Rome". It is a musical tale of the soldiers climbing the Appian way in battle and victory. You can hear the percussion as they march and a victorious crescendo att the end.

(contributed by Grace Adams <GAdams1350aol.com>)

Biography

[From the Encyclopedia Brittanica.]

Italian composer who introduced Russian orchestral colour and some of the violence of Richard Strauss’s harmonic techniques into Italian music. He studied at the Liceo of Bologna and later with Rimsky-Korsakov in St. Petersburg, where he was first violist in the Opera Orchestra. From his foreign masters Respighi acquired a command of orchestral colour and an interest in orchestral composition.

A piano concerto by Respighi was performed at Bologna in 1902; a "notturno" for orchestra was played at a concert in the Metropolitan Opera House that year. His comic opera Re Enzo and the opera Semirama brought him recognition and an appointment in 1913 to the Sta. Cecilia Academy in Rome as professor of composition. He became director of the conservatory in 1924 but resigned in 1926.

Respighi was drawn to the sensual, decadent climate of the Rome depicted by the poet D’Annunzio, and in his celebrated suites - Pines of Rome and Fountains of Rome especially - he sought to convey the subtlety and colour of the poet’s imagination. Other suites include Vetrate di chiesa (Church Windows, 1927); Gli ucelli (The Birds, 1927); Feste Romane (Roman Festival, 1929); and Trittico Botticelliano (Botticelli Triptych, 1927, for chamber orchestra).

Respighi was also drawn to old Italian music, which he arranged in two sets of Antique Dances and Arias (transcribed for orchestra from lute pieces). One of his most popular scores was his arrangement of pieces by Rossini, La Boutique fantasque, produced by Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes in London (1919). A later arrangement of Rossini piano pieces, Rossiniana (1925), also became a ballet.

As a composer of opera, Respighi had less success outside his own country. His best known works for the theatre were Belfagor, a comic opera produced at Milan in 1923, and La fiamma (Rome, 1934), which effectively transfers the gloomy Norwegian tragedy of H. Wiers Jenssen (known to English-speaking audiences in John Masefield’s version as The Witch) to Byzantine Ravenna. In a different, more subdued vein are the "mystery," Maria Egiziaca (1932), and his posthumous Lucrezia (completed by his wife, Elsa, 1937), the latter showing Respighi’s interest in the dramatic recitative of Claudio Monteverdi, of whose Orfeo he made a free transcription for La Scala, Milan, in 1935.

Respighi’s wife and pupil, Elsa Olivieri-Sangiacomo Respighi (1894-?), was a singer and a composer of operas, choral and symphonic works, and songs.

[in Dutch]

Ottorino Respighi was een van belangrijkste Italiaans componisten van zijn generatie. Zijn grootste roem ontleent hij, net als zijn leermeester Guiseppe Martucci, aan zijn symfonische werken en orkestrale bewerkingen. Hij was het die de Russische orkestkleuren en de gedurfde harmonische technieken van Richard Strauss in de Italiaanse muziek introduceerde. Als operacomponist is Respighi buiten zijn landsgrenzen minder bekend.

Een vroege en sterk vormende invloed was Rimsky-Korsakov, bij wie hij in de leer was toen hij als altviolist aan het orkest van de Russische Keizerlijke Opera in St.-Petersburg verbonden was. Wat men ook van de kwaliteiten van zijn originele composities mag denken, hij was zonder twijfel een van de grootmeesters in de kunst van de orkestratie. In tegenstelling tot zijn tijdgenoten en mede-orkest-grootheden Arnold Schönberg en Béla Bartók was Respighi behoudend, met een idioom dat zich zelden ver de 20e eeuw in waagde. Zijn stijl is er een van onmiddellijk aansprekende melodieën, geplaatst tegen een achtergrond van rijke, doorschijnende harmonieën van een constante verfijning en afwerking. Respighi was een begenadigd instrumentalist, en genoot zowel als pianist als als violist aanzienlijke faam. Hij groeide uit tot een bedreven en overtuigend dirigent, veelal van zijn eigen werken.

(Contributed by Robert Tausk <r.tauskelsevier.nl>)

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Su una violetta morta by Ottorino Respighi
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Notturno for Two Pianos, Four Hands
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Respighi: Feste romane; Pini di Roma; Rimsky-Korsakov: Le Coq d’or, suite. Lorin Maazel, the Cleveland Orchestra. Decca Legends 289 466 993-2.(Review) ... review): An article from: Sensible Sound
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Laud to the Nativity
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Ancient Airs and Dances & Other Works for Solo Piano
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The Fountains of Rome in Full Score
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