It seems a little quiet in The Composers Forum these days so I thought that I would start a thread on a somewhat more mainstream composer than the rather obscure figures I usually comment on

(Just in case you are interested...there are quite a few famous composers who don't yet have threads of their own-Balakirev, Bernstein, Busoni. Dohnanyi, Falla, Kabalevsky, Mendelssohn, Orff, Puccini, Weber, Weill for example!)
I love the richness of Respighi's music, the superb mastery of orchestral colour, the sweeping bravura and confidence of his writing, that combination of late romantic excess and his beautiful recreation of the Italian baroque.
Obviously(and having just returned from a visit to Rome these pieces have a special resonance for me) the 'Roman trilogy' of 'The Fountains of Rome', 'The Pines of Rome' and (the lesser) 'Feste Romane' are tremendous favourites. I first got to know the first two of these in an ancient Ace of Clubs LP with Fernando Previtali and Alberto Erede but I have more modern accounts conducted by Charles Munch, Enrique Batiz and Riccardo Muti.
But there are so many luscious Respighi scores! The delightful Suite "The Birds", the Ancient Airs and Dances, the splendid 'Vetrate di chiesa', the lovely 'Three Botticelli Pictures' and the dramatic 'Brazilian Impressions'.
Chandos has recorded a lot of Respighi's less well known orchestral scores and anyone attuned to Respighi's wavelength but not familiar with works like the Straussian Sinfonia Drammatica of 1913-14, the quite magnificent Metamorphoseon of 1930, or the colourful series of concertos(many of them based on Gregorian plainchant) like the 'Concerto gregoriano' for violin or the 'Concerto in modo misolidio for piano' is in for a real treat!
There are operas and a deal of extremely beautiful choral and vocal music too

It is a tragedy that Respighi died at the relatively early age of 56. The late 'Metamorphoseon' suggests that his style had the potential to develop further-as did those of his contemporaries Casella and Malipiero. Respighi's music is by far the most accessible and colourful of those composers of the 'Generazione dell'ottanta' and his relative fame compared to his contemporaries reflects that but the range of his music is still not heard often enough in the concert hall today.