Respighi: Sinfonia Drammatica

Description

Ottorino Respighi (1879-1936): Sinfonia DrammaticaOttorino Respighi was born in Bologna in 1879 and studied the violin andviola at the Liceo Musicale from 1891 with Federico Sarti. At the same time hetook lessons in composition, at first from the musicologist Luigi Torchi, whohad returned to Bologna from the Liceo Rossiui in Pesaro in the same year, andlater from the composer Giuseppe Martucci, who was director of the Liceo until1902. In 1899 he completed his studies and the following year went to StPetersburg as principal viola-player at the Imperial Opera. In Russia, where hespent the seasons of 1901-02 and 1902-03, he took lessons from Rimsky- Korsakovin composition and orchestration.During the first decade of the present century Respighi won a reputation as aperformer, while pursuing his growing interest in earlier music and incomposition. In Berlin during 1908 and 1909 he attended lectures by Max Bruch,to relatively little effect. The influence of Rimsky-Korsakov, however, was toremain with him and to guide his bold use of orchestral colour. These yearsbrought a series of compositions. In 1902 his Piano Concerto in A minor wasperformed in Bologna and his Notturno of 1905 was played in New York underRodolfo Ferrari. The latter year saw the first production of his opera R?¿Enzo in Bologna, a work followed five years later by Semirama, theseoperas winning him a reputation that led, in 1913, to his appointment as teacherof composition at the Liceo di Santa Cecilia in Rome.In 1919 Respighi married a singer, Elsa Olivieri-Sangiacomo, and in 1924became director of Santa Cecilia, resigning two years later to devote himself tocomposition, although he continued to teach and to perform in concerts as aconductor and as an accompanist to his wife. He died in 1936 at the house he hadnamed after one of his most famous works, Pini di Roma.Respighi's international reputation, which still exceeds that of any otherItalian composer of his generation, depends very largely on the symphonic poemsthat offer evocative and pictorial representations of Rome. Fontane di Roma,four vivid pictures of the fountains of the city, was completed in 1916. Pini diRoma, an evocation of Roman scenes associated with the pines of the city,followed in 1924, and this was to be succeeded by the Feste romane in 1929, awork coloured by a certain contemporary political optimism. In 1918 he providedthe Russian ballet impresario Dyagilev with a score derived from Rossini, Laboutique fantasque, a work that has continued in popular ballet repertoiresince its first performance in London in 1919. A later ballet, Belkis, Reginadi Saba, was written in 1931, and performed at La Scala, Milan, in thefollowing year. There were, too, other operas which have largely failed 10capture the public imagination, although offering music of considerableinterest.Another aspect of Respighi's work was his enthusiasm for earlier music.Gregorian chant was to suggest a melodic source for compositions such as the Con