Respighi : Oeuvres orchestrales, vol. 2 [CD de audio] Orchestra Sinfonica Di Roma, Ottorino Respighi and Francesco La Vecchia

The second installment of the Complete Orchestral Works of Ottorino Respighi contains a large number of slightly less 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 fiery and intimate Trittico Botticelliano (after Botticelli's great paintings) and the beautiful works for violin and orchestra (Poema Autunnale, Concerto all antica). The first volume of the Respighi series ( Brilliant Classics 94392) had already received high critical praise. The Rome Symphony Orchestra and maestro Francesco La Vecchia have recently won several awards for their recordings (Diapason d'Or, Choc de Classica, etc.). New recordings, newly written program notes, by an Italian specialist. The second 2CD volume of Respighi's orchestral music (from a four-piece project by the Rome Orchestra) focuses on the concert form and 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 forms (Ancient Airs and Dances) and large forms (the early Concerto all Antica). The Autunnale Poem is a freer and more rhapsodic development of the violin concerto form, melancholy and with a touch of melancholy, as befits the season. On CD1 we find the subtle sounds of Respighi's Brazilian Impressions (composed after a 1927 tour to South America) that evoke a tropical night, carnival dances and even powerful indigenous snakes (which he saw at a Reptile Institute). The four Church Windows are hardly more chaste indeed, such is Respighi's love of voluptuous orchestration. Respighi's considerable orchestral output has only recently come into its own on record and this Brilliant release is billed as the first volume of a comprehensive tour. Furthermore, it gives a pertinent vision of the two aspects that inform the composer's thinking during his maturity: on the one hand, Italy's scenic and musical past... La Vecchia ensures masterfully prepared readings. Gramophone, June 2012, reviewing the first volume of the series.