Respighi: Vetrate di chiesa (Church Windows)

The second instalment of the Complete Orchestral Works of Ottorino Respighi contains a wealth of the slightly lesser known works (the most famous of course being the Roman Trilogy, issued in the first volume) of the highest quality: the luminous Vetrate di Chiesa (Church Windows), the blazing and intimate Trittico Botticelliano (after the great paintings of Botticelli), and the beautiful works for violin and orchestra (Poema Autunnale, Concerto all’antica). The first volume of the Respighi series (Brilliant Classics 94392) met already with great critical acclaim.The Orchestra Sinfonica di Roma and maestro Francesco La Vecchia have recently won several awards for their recordings (Diapason d’Or, Choc de Classica, etc). New recordings, newly written liner notes, by an Italian specialist. The second 2CD volume of Respighi’s orchestral music (of a projected four from the Rome orchestra) focuses on the concerto form, and on Respighi’s relationship with early music. He was a pioneer in this field, and applied Renaissance rhythms and harmonies to the vocabulary and instrumentation of Richard Strauss’s idiom, both in small (Antique Airs and Dances) and large forms (the early Concerto all’Antica). The Poema Autunnale is a more freeflowing, rhapsodic development of the violin concerto form, moody and with a touch of melancholy as befits the season.

On CD1 we find the sultry sounds of Respighi’s ‘Brazilian Impressions’ (composed after a 1927 tour to South America) evoking a tropical night, Carnival dances and even the mighty indigenous snakes (which he saw in a Reptile institute).

The four ‘Church Windows’ are hardly more chaste in effect, such is Respighi’s love of voluptuous orchestration. ‘Respighi's sizeable orchestral output has only latterly come into its own on disc and this release from Brilliant is announced as the first volume of a complete traversal. It gives a pertinent overview, moreover, of the twin aspects that inform the composer's thinking throughout his maturity: namely Italy's scenic and musical past... La Vecchia secures eloquently wrought readings.’ Gramophone, June 2012, reviewing the first volume of the series.

The ‘Roman Trilogy’ is among Respighi’s best-known and best-loved works. Fountains of Rome and Pines of Rome are comprised of four distinct sections, each again depicting a particular fountain, or pine grove, in Rome, at a particular time of day. The final chapter in the trilogy, Roman Festivals, is inspired by, as the title suggests, four Rome-based festivals.

Respighi based his Church Windows on Three Piano Preludes on Gregorian Melodies. The preludes were published in 1922, and orchestrated three years later, Respighi adding one further movement, making it a four-piece symphonic suite. Each of the individual movements was given an appropriate sub-heading, illustrating a biblical or religious scene that might have appeared in actual stained-glass windows. The first movement, for instance, is slow and stately, its constant forward moving accompaniment suggesting ‘the passing of a chariot beneath a brilliant and starry sky’, hence the name ‘The Flight into Egypt’.

Brazilian Impressions took its inspiration from the composer’s colourful and vibrant memories of a trip to South America. The opening movement is a deeply atmospheric nocturne, depicting dance rhythms and folksongs heard in the distance on a warm, tropical Brazilian evening. A less pleasant memory perhaps is recalled in the second movement, namely a visit to the Butantan Reptile Institute, the sliding movements and angry whirring of the rattle-snakes perfectly depicted in the music.

The ballet score for Belkis, Queen of Sheba evokes the wondrous journey undertaken in the year 1000 B.C. by Belkis, the Queen of Sheba, in response to an imperial message from Solomon, the King of Israel. The full eighty-minute ballet required an enormous orchestra including such unconventional instruments as sitars and wind machines, a chorus and vocal soloists, and a narrator to relate the story in verse. Two years after completing the ballet score, Respighi extracted a purely orchestral suite, which is recorded here.

Metamorphoseon, commissioned by Serge Koussevitzky to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1930, consists of twelve variations, or ‘modes’. The day after the work’s premiere performance, The Boston Traveller wrote: ‘...a colossal achievement... His is a rare genius for melody, an absolute technical command and above all, brilliant orchestration.’

Include FREE 2009 CHANDOS CD catalogue – in four-colour.

As part of the Chandos 30th anniversary celebrations, we offer the 2009 CHANDOS CD catalogue as a free accompaniment to two popular full price recordings from the Chandos catalogue. Both recordings are offered for the first time at budget price. The comprehensive four-colour catalogue takes the collector through the Chandos collection in a user-friendly manner and is printed in handy CD size.

Recorded in 1955