Respighi. Rachmaninoff. Mozart

Ottorino Respighi was a contemporary of Giacomo Puccini and also composed ten operas. But these were not the works that made him famous. It was through the symphonic poems Fontane di Roma and Pini di Roma that Respighi succeeded in restoring Italian orchestral music’s international significance, which had been lost following the deaths of Corelli, Vivaldi and Boccherini. In Italy in the 19^th century there was not one symphonist composer, and it was only operas that were acclaimed. As a result, several musicians decided that this could no longer continue and they attempted to amend the situation. Among them was Giuseppe Martucci, a teacher at the Music School of Bologna. It may be true that his works failed to become part of the international repertoire, but he did teach Respighi.
The young Respighi worked for some time as a violist in the Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra and at the same time took lessons from Rimsky-Korsakov. His knowledge of Russian music proved useful when, later in Rome, he composed the ballets La pentola magica, Fantasia indiana, Canzoni arabe and Autunno to themes from Russian folk songs and music by Glinka, Borodin, Tchaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakov. Of even greater significance, however, were his magical command of instrumentation and his mastery of a full and colourful orchestra with a glockenspiel, two harps, a piano and organ.
International glory came to Respighi with the symphonic poem Fontane di Roma (1918). The four movements, performed without interruption (La fontana di Valle Giulia all’alba, La fontana del Tritone al mattino, La fontana di Trevi al meriggio, La fontana di Villa Medici al tramonto) to a large degree were inspired by the art of the impressionists who loved to depict objects at different times of the day and in different lighting. Debussy did something similar in music, depicting as no-one else the nature of water through music. But the idea of composing an image of Rome in sounds came from Puccini, who drew a portrait of the Eternal City in his opera Tosca, where, as in the first movement of the Fontane, one hears the bells of Rome chime.
As his success grew, Respighi wrote the magnificent Pini di Roma (1924) and the less well known Feste romane (1928). The four movements of the Pini, entitled I pini di Villa Borghese, Pini presso una catacomba, I pini del Gianicolo and I pini della Via Appia, refer not so much as to the cityscapes as to the history of Rome. Respighi’s interest in the history of Italian music deepened over the years, and his legacy includes a plethora of classical works, while in Pini presso una catacomba he made use of intonations of medieval Gregorian chant.
However, immersing himself in history Respighi was also looking to the future: in I pini del Gianicolo he ordered the use of a gramophone recording of a nightingale’s song. This kind of collage of live sound and recordings came into widespread use much later, in the 1950s.
Anna Bulycheva

Sergei Vasilievich Rachmaninoff wrote the Spring cantata in 1902. Its premiere in St Petersburg took place in the hall of the Noble Assembly on 8 January 1905 with the participation of the Mariinsky Theatre Chorus (conducted by Alexander Ilyich Siloti). This work is unusual in many respects. Even Nekrasov’s poetry itself is unusual, forming the basis of the cantata in which the almost un-combinable is combined, where images of nature in wintertime and in springtime merge with the hero’s love drama (his wife’s infidelity, which almost results in a bloody denouement – a traditional melodramatic subject). With Nekrasov, nature is not just a background for the unfolding drama. “Dishevelled winter” and the “winter blizzard song” in the hero’s mind become direct “co-conspirators” of the impending murder (predicting and even demanding its execution). Spring, with its anthem and Christian motifs of love, tolerance and forgiveness, however, is allotted a reconciliatory role at the close of the poetry. Vivid images of springtime nature are seen in their own right, as independent and existing almost outside the dramatic plot (“Rush-buzz Green Noise. Green Noise, spring noise!”).
Three Russian Songs for orchestra and chorus, Op. 41, were written in 1926 and dedicated to Leopold Stokowski. This is one of the few works by Rachmaninoff in which he turned to truly folkloric themes, interpreting them in a unique and unusual manner.
Vladimir Goryachikh