A Ramble : Respighi in Rome

[hand-ru]

Hello all,

without a shadow of a doubt Respighi's Roman works (Pines, Fountains, Festival) are at the top of my preferred listening list. I first heard the work whilst auditioning audio equipment many years ago and at the time it struck me as having the scale and dynamic impact I was searching for. It is perhaps the piece of work that I have acquired in a "deeper" fashion than any other - although I suspect that the variations I have are merely par for the course amongst listeners of classical music. If only I knew what a Tone Poem was

The very first copy I bought on CD is still my preferred performance on silver disk - being Ricardo Muti and The Philadelphia Orchestra (EMI CDC 7473162) with Maazel and The Cleveland Orchestra coming in a close second (DECCA 466 993-2).

On vinyl my first choice is the Classic Records 45rpm single sided reissue of the Reiner / Chicago Symphony performance with a quirky second place in the form of Toscanini amd the NBC Symphony Orchestra.

All the very best - Andrew

 

[PeteH]

The Muti is a particularly stunning rendition (it's currently available on EMI Red Line or as an HMV own-label reissue AFAIK), although ISTR the Jansons is spectacular too.

And I fully agree, it's magnificent for giving your hifi a thorough working over. Wouldn't be quite my favourite pieces of music though

 

[tones]

For me, the greatest "Pines" I've heard is the old Karajan/Philharmonia version from the late '50s or early '60s (I think). I have a much-treasured vinyl of this. I've never heard anyone build and maintain the tension in the "Pines of the Appian Way", with its depiction of the Roman legion marching in triumph, anything like as well.

 

[lordsummit]

I have Karajan with the Berlin Phil. I think and this is pretty fine as well.

 

[GrahamN]

Glad to see someone else around here with the taste and distinction to cope with good meaty music rather than all this namby-pamby baroque and renaissance stuff!

Originally posted by hand-ru
If only I knew what a Tone Poem was

Not sure whether this is a serious question or not - but here goes:
Tone Poem - piece of music, normally orchestral (actually I can't think of any that are not), where there is a significant descriptive element in addition to (the detractors would say "at the expense of") the purely musical elements. Often (but by no means always) fairly free in form; arguably invented by Liszt (who called them "Symphonic Poems"), they became very propular with the later romantics and nationalists. R Strauss was probably the most famous composer of tone poems - 12 (IIRC) written primarily in the last decade of the 19th cent. Some would even go as far as to call Tchaikovsky's "Manfred" Symphony a multi-movement tone poem - although "Francesca da Rimini" is a much more obvious candidate.

Other than the Respighi, there are plenty of other crackers. Beyond the obvious Strauss (particularly Till Eulenspiegel, Don Juan, Also Sprach Zarathustra, and I also have a soft spot for the later Alpensinfonie - despite the Torygraph reviewer's obvious disdain - and I find Karajan hard to beat in orchestral Strauss), you may also like to try some of the following:
Liszt: Les Preludes, personally not conviced by many of the others
Smetana: "Vltava" and "From Bohemia's Woods and Fields" - the best two from his cycle of 6 called "Ma Vlast"
Bax: Tintagel, November Woods
Lloyd Webber (Andrew's Dad): Aurora
and I'd probably include Schoenberg's "Verklaerte Nacht" in the genre too (ah...in the original scoring, String Sextet, there is a non-orchestral Tone Poem). There're also several notable examples by Dvorak from his later years (e.g. recently released to some critical acclaim by Harnoncourt IIRC), such as "The Noonday Witch".

Also from the Finnish/Estonian axis there're a few goodies
Sibelius: Pohjola's Daughter and Tapiola
Heino Eller: Dawn (on a Chandos CD - Music from Estonia Vol 1)

I only have one recording of the Respighi, on Naxos - which is actually not at all bad. Although I've not heard the versions you mention - I would expect that this music is right up Maazel's street.

 

[Rodrigo de Sá]

Re: Re: A Ramble : Respighi in Rome

Originally posted by GrahamN
Glad to see someone else around here with the taste and distinction to cope with good meaty music rather than all this namby-pamby baroque and renaissance stuff!

:gatling: :clint: :respect:

 

[titian]

Originally posted by tones
For me, the greatest "Pines" I've heard is the old Karajan/Philharmonia version from the late '50s or early '60s (I think). I have a much-treasured vinyl of this. I've never heard anyone build and maintain the tension in the "Pines of the Appian Way", with its depiction of the Roman legion marching in triumph, anything like as well.

I don't know why you believe "Pines of the Appian Way" (Tempo di marcia) should be played building and maintaining the tension throughout.
Respighi left clear notes on the meaning of this piece and they are clear attributes like 'foggy dawn on the Appian way', 'tragic countryside under the surveillance of the solitaire pines' (for example) which doesn't at all want any kind of tension actually the opposite!

Only later in the imagination of the 'poet' appears a vision of the old glories.
'Squillano le buccine e un esercito consolare irrompe, nel fulgore del nuovo sole, verso la Via Sacra, per ascendere al trionfo del Campidoglio'.
scene of so many armies returning in triumph, are evoked in a sustained crescendo culminating in the entry of six extra brass instruments.
Respighi calls them buccine, the coiled martial trumpets of ancient Rome, but allows them to be impersonated by pairs of soprano, tenor and bass flogelhorns. Before this superb outburst, though, the cor anglais and bassoon announcing the approach of the legions sound apprehensive, even terrified: are they the prisoners sent ahead to be sold as slaves?
tension doesn't need to be put constantly into this vision of the old glories: it is a triumph march with more or less happy (positive) outburst except for that part with the cor anglais and bassoon. And this is also a particularity of Respighi. His orchestration is very very colourful which also emphazise the different feelings in the same piece. To expect therefore simply a build and maintain of a tension is very simple, one sided view of this musical works.
To perform these different feelings (aspects) in his works is though not so 'popular' (like Karajan likes to be) and therefore interpretations like Muti may also appear to many people not very exciting.

 

[tones]

Originally posted by titian
I don't know why you believe "Pines of the Appian Way" (Tempo di marcia) should be played building and maintaining the tension throughout.

I didn't actually say that, Titian. There are many ways of performing the piece, and Karajan's is only one. However, it's the way that appeals most to me personally. Moreover, the tension build-up to which I refer only comes at the end as the drum beats announcing the approach of the legions start softly and from that point the whole gradually and relentlessly builds. Great!