Ottorino Respighi(1879-1936)

Started by Dundonnell, May 12, 2009, 04:05:50 AM

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kyjo

Quote from: SymphonicAddict on September 29, 2018, 09:32:33 PM


What are your preferred recordings of Trittico Botticelliano? I'm very fond of López-Cobos on Telarc and the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra on DG. I revisited the former, being bewitched once more by such a singular beauty. La Primavera and La Nascita di Venere strike me like creations of extreme and pure loveliness, the wealth of effects takes me to another dimension. Respighi at his best in chamber forms. L'Adorazione dei Magi is less successful but with a certain appeal.

I really enjoy John Neschling's recent recording of this lovely work with the Orchestre Philharmonique Royal De Liege on BIS:

[asin]B0776K6NKF[/asin]
"Music is enough for a lifetime, but a lifetime is not enough for music" - Sergei Rachmaninoff

SymphonicAddict

The Neschling and the Marriner look tempting, it will be worth investigating.

Trittico is some of the most pristine music I have heard. There are a fair amount of brilliant recordings that show this piece in all its glory.

SymphonicAddict



I fell in love with La Sensitiva from the above recording. Such magical music! Not only magical, but tender, mystical, lovely, lightweight, enchanting, subtle. Once more this composer gives a masterful lesson about orchestration. This is Respighi at his most distilled. One of his finest works as far as I can think.

SymphonicAddict

Earlier it was my first acquaintance ever with a Respighi opera, more exactly Semirâma, his 2nd opera after Re Enzo:



How delighted to hear this!! I couldn't expect less from such a masterly composer. This is mind-blowing stuff! The best of the early Respighi is here, including some traces of Strauss and Puccini regarding the colourful orchestration and lyrical intensity respectively. Many atmospheric and exotic passages charged of sheer magic left me a strong impression, not to say the mighty voice of Eva Marton, just great. After the Strauss operas I will entirely continue with these ones.

Roasted Swan

Quote from: SymphonicAddict on September 11, 2019, 05:02:11 PM
Earlier it was my first acquaintance ever with a Respighi opera, more exactly Semirâma, his 2nd opera after Re Enzo:



How delighted to hear this!! I couldn't expect less from such a masterly composer. This is mind-blowing stuff! The best of the early Respighi is here, including some traces of Strauss and Puccini regarding the colourful orchestration and lyrical intensity respectively. Many atmospheric and exotic passages charged of sheer magic left me a strong impression, not to say the mighty voice of Eva Marton, just great. After the Strauss operas I will entirely continue with these ones.

Try La Fiamma next - in very much the same mould and performed by a similar cast as this

[asin]B004BVR3D6[/asin]

ouch to the current Amazon price mind........!

SymphonicAddict

Quote from: Roasted Swan on September 12, 2019, 10:23:58 AM
Try La Fiamma next - in very much the same mould and performed by a similar cast as this

[asin]B004BVR3D6[/asin]

ouch to the current Amazon price mind........!

The link doesn't work, but I did read some reviews of that opera and they look pretty optimistic. I'm eager to listen to this one and the rest.

Mirror Image

Before the recent site crash, I had posted how much I admired Neschling's Respighi on BIS:



But I also liked this recording on BIS as well:


Mirror Image

Another recording I was most impressed with was this one on Hyperion:


Mirror Image

Some of my other favorite Respighi recordings:


Christo

Quote from: Mirror Image on June 04, 2020, 06:24:28 AM
Some of my other favorite Respighi recordings:


Own them all and love them all, in between I listened to most of the new Neschling/BIS recordings and found them very good - but not better than Geoffey Simons, who remains my favourite in most of this repertoire. At least Neschling replaces most recordings by Jesús López-Cobos for Telarc which I found less convincing. Will be playing my favourite piece by Respighi tonight, the Trittico botticelliano, under Geoffrey Simons (had forgotten that I own this cd, because its by the CALA label, not Chandos).  :)
... music is not only an 'entertainment', nor a mere luxury, but a necessity of the spiritual if not of the physical life, an opening of those magic casements through which we can catch a glimpse of that country where ultimate reality will be found.    RVW, 1948

Mirror Image

Quote from: Christo on June 04, 2020, 07:01:20 AM
Own them all and love them all, in between I listened to most of the new Neschling/BIS recordings and found them very good - but not better than Geoffey Simons, who remains my favourite in most of this repertoire. At least Neschling replaces most recordings by Jesús López-Cobos for Telarc which I found less convincing. Will be playing my favourite piece by Respighi tonight, the Trittico botticelliano, under Geoffrey Simons (had forgotten that I own this cd, because its by the CALA label, not Chandos).  :)

Simon has recorded a good bit for the Cala label. I own of few of those recordings. He's certainly an underrated conductor.

bhodges

Following this thread with interest, since I am one of those who has not heard much Respighi other than the trilogy, some chamber music, and his opera, La campana sommersa (The Sunken Bell).

A recording of Pines was my first-ever LP (Sargent/LSO), and though I still love it and Fountains, over the years Feste Romane has become my favorite. My go-to conductor is Muti, whose theatrically charged vision is like no other: when he and Chicago did a few years ago, it was a revelation.

Now there's this version from the 2009 Proms -- the first-ever Proms performance -- with Vasily Petrenko and the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain. Gotta say, they are on fire here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9u1oT7QtQp4&t=1415s

--Bruce

Symphonic Addict

I've been thinking of something lately. It's about San Gregorio Magno (St. Gregory the Great) from Vetrate di Chiesa. Frankly speaking, it's some of the most impressive, majestic, apotheosic and overwhelming music I've ever heard, so I ask: should it be named like that catholic saint? Chandos booklet calls it "a kind of Papal coronation in sound", but for me this music goes beyond, it's much more transcendent, magical, mystical, universal, ineffable. What do you, Respighi fans, think?
Part of the tragedy of the Palestinians is that they have essentially no international support for a good reason: they've no wealth, they've no power, so they've no rights.

Noam Chomsky

Mirror Image

Quote from: Symphonic Addict on June 04, 2020, 12:49:35 PM
I've been thinking of something lately. It's about San Gregorio Magno (St. Gregory the Great) from Vetrate di Chiesa. Frankly speaking, it's some of the most impressive, majestic, apotheosic and overwhelming music I've ever heard, so I ask: should it be named like that catholic saint? Chandos booklet calls it "a kind of Papal coronation in sound", but for me this music goes beyond, it's much more transcendent, magical, mystical, universal, ineffable. What do you, Respighi fans, think?

Honestly, they're just titles to me. Music is such an abstract thing and even in works that explicitly point out their source(s) of inspiration, my mind goes somewhere else, but it is, after all, the listener who draws their own conclusions about a piece of music. Sorry to sound rather vague, but music is interpreted in so many different ways not only from the musicians but the listeners, that we'll never truly know what is fact and what is fiction.

Symphonic Addict

Quote from: Mirror Image on June 04, 2020, 01:05:01 PM
Honestly, they're just titles to me. Music is such an abstract thing and even in works that explicitly point out their source(s) of inspiration, my mind goes somewhere else, but it is, after all, the listener who draws their own conclusions about a piece of music. Sorry to sound rather vague, but music is interpreted in so many different ways not only from the musicians but the listeners, that we'll never truly know what is fact and what is fiction.

Actually, yes, the musical experience depends on how the listener gets it or wants to get it.
Part of the tragedy of the Palestinians is that they have essentially no international support for a good reason: they've no wealth, they've no power, so they've no rights.

Noam Chomsky

Symphonic Addict

Earlier today I listened to Belkis, Regina di Saba in what seems to be its complete recording. Really fantastic music. At the beginning I was doubtful since there is a narrator through several numbers (and she speaks in German, so I didn't understand anything), but fortunately  it's not too intrusive. There is much more interesting material apart from what is found in the famous suite, including some choral parts. Maybe the rendition could be a little better, but overall I liked it very much.

https://www.youtube.com/v/YDSDWhZZxxc
Part of the tragedy of the Palestinians is that they have essentially no international support for a good reason: they've no wealth, they've no power, so they've no rights.

Noam Chomsky

Mirror Image

Quote from: Symphonic Addict on June 04, 2020, 09:07:05 PM
Earlier today I listened to Belkis, Regina di Saba in what seems to be its complete recording. Really fantastic music. At the beginning I was doubtful since there is a narrator through several numbers (and she speaks in German, so I didn't understand anything), but fortunately  it's not too intrusive. There is much more interesting material apart from what is found in the famous suite, including some choral parts. Maybe the rendition could be a little better, but overall I liked it very much.

https://www.youtube.com/v/YDSDWhZZxxc

Very nice, Cesar. I wasn't aware that the complete recording existed. Hmmm..may have to investigate it. Thanks for bringing it to our attention.

vandermolen

Quote from: Christo on June 04, 2020, 07:01:20 AM
Own them all and love them all, in between I listened to most of the new Neschling/BIS recordings and found them very good - but not better than Geoffey Simons, who remains my favourite in most of this repertoire. At least Neschling replaces most recordings by Jesús López-Cobos for Telarc which I found less convincing. Will be playing my favourite piece by Respighi tonight, the Trittico botticelliano, under Geoffrey Simons (had forgotten that I own this cd, because its by the CALA label, not Chandos).  :)
Very much agree. I own them all other than the Muti disc. I remember driving to school one Saturday morning (in the early days when I had to go in on a Saturday morning) and really enjoying a piece on the radio and hoping that it would finish before I arrived at work, so that I could know what it  was (this must have been in c. 1988). Luckily it just finished in time and it was 'St Gregory the Great' from Church Windows conducted by Geoffrey Simon. In those days there was a record shop in the local town and amazingly they had the LP!
"Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm" (Churchill).

'The test of a work of art is, in the end, our affection for it, not our ability to explain why it is good' (Stanley Kubrick).

Mirror Image

Quote from: vandermolen on June 04, 2020, 11:25:06 PM
Very much agree. I own them all other than the Muti disc. I remember driving to school one Saturday morning (in the early days when I had to go in on a Saturday morning) and really enjoying a piece on the radio and hoping that it would finish before I arrived at work, so that I could know what it  was (this must have been in c. 1988). Luckily it just finished in time and it was 'St Gregory the Great' from Church Windows conducted by Geoffrey Simon. In those days there was a record shop in the local town and amazingly they had the LP!

You don't own Muti's Roman Trilogy, Jeffrey? :o You definitely should remedy this! Muti's is still my favorite performance after all of these years.

vandermolen

#159
Quote from: Mirror Image on June 05, 2020, 09:20:19 AM
You don't own Muti's Roman Trilogy, Jeffrey? :o You definitely should remedy this! Muti's is still my favorite performance after all of these years.
Ok thanks John. Will look out for it. Having said that I wonder if I do have it on an EMI compilation.

PS I realise that I have it on this recently acquired double CD set here - silly me!
"Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm" (Churchill).

'The test of a work of art is, in the end, our affection for it, not our ability to explain why it is good' (Stanley Kubrick).