Respighi: Concerto in modo misolidio

This new recording features star conductor Sakari Oramo and the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra with two Italian masterpieces by the late-Romantic composer Ottorino Respighi (1879–1936).

The symphonic poem Fontane di Roma remains one of Respighi’s most popular works and forms part of his Roman Trilogy. Each movement depicts one of Rome’s fountains during different periods of the day and night, while the work as a whole showcases the centuries-old Italian marriage of culture, art, and worldly pleasure.

The discovery piece on this disc, the monumental Concerto ‘in the Mixolydian mode’, deserves more widespread introduction into the standard repertoire; its title refers to the work’s majestic main theme that is derived from medieval plainchant.

This work’s champion, star pianist Olli Mustonen, has been hailed by The Sunday Times as, “a living dream of pianism, having broken through an expressive barrier that other players do not know exists.”

Concerto in modo misolidio and Toccata are Respighi’s last and best works for piano and orchestra. They are recorded here on a single CD for the first time. This award-winning team of Soloist and Conductor have collaborated before (Malipiero piano concertos) and won a Diapason D’Or/Dècouverte in January 2008.

Since the early Nineties, with Cherkassky’s support and encouragement, Sandro Ivo Bartoli revisited the Italian literature from the early Twentieth century, establishing a trend and rapidly becoming its leading interpreter. This exciting new issue brings together one of the most popular of late-Romantic composers with a fine talent on the Italian scene who is quickly winning a reputation abroad. Sandro Ivo Bartoli has shown himself a fine champion of early 20th-century piano music, especially from his home country.

The combination of piano and orchestra might seem ideally suited to the style(s) of Ottorino Respighi, offering as it does the generic possibilities for weighty declamation, broad melodies and attention-drawing virtuosity: all these qualities can be heard in abundance in his best works in for this medium, the Concerto in modo misolidio and the Toccata. Presented here for the first time as a coupling, both of Respighi’s great works for piano and orchestra take inspiration from early music, as may be judged from their archaic titles. Pre-Baroque modes and forms, in which Respighi became something of an expert in the dawn of early-music scholarship, pepper these score with an exotic, yet historically conscientious flavour. The Concerto is grand in manner and generous in scale; the single-movement Toccata is much more driven, and indeed hectic at times. The combination of these two works on a single CD makes for a sensational pairing, full of Romantic melodies and high-quality pianistic thrills.