Ottorino Respighi - Belfagor Overture; Toccata; Tre Corali; Fantasia slava (Edward Downes)

Information

Composer: Ottorino Respighi

1. Belfagor Overture
2. Toccata for piano & orchestra
3. Tre Corali: 1. Lento assai
4. Tre Corali: 2. Andante con moto e scherzando
5. Tre Corali: 3. Andante
6. Fantasia slava for piano & orchestra

Geoffrey Tozer, piano

BBC Philharmonic Orchestra

Edward Downes, conductor

Date: 1994

Label: Chandos

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Review

Respighi’s colourful music could have been written with the clear, full-bodied Chandos sound in mind. Following on from where Geoffrey Simon began for the label in the Eighties, Edward Downes is now exploring the more symphonic side of Respighi’s output, showing there is more to him than the Roman trilogy (if not that much, qualitatively). The present disc includes two of his four concertante works for piano and orchestra, the extended Toccata (according to Tozer’s booklet note, the longest such work in existence) and the quirky Slavonic Rhapsody, with its humorous sideswipe at Dvorák. More characteristic of Respighi is the concert overture derived from his opera Belfagor, about the exploits of a Till Eulenspiegel/Don Juan figure, portrayed with suitably colourful sound-painting. All these, together with the Bachian Three Chorales, are played with marvellous verve and commitment – the BBC PO under Downes has a way with this out-of-the-way repertoire that few can equal. The sound quality on this disc is nothing short of stunning.

The Koch disc inevitably pales a little by comparison. For one thing, apart from the evocative, even Vaughan Williams-like Autumnal Poem, the music is of a lesser quality. The setting for baritone and string quartet of Shelley’s ‘The Sunset’, in translation as Il tramonto, is interminable, particularly when no texts are provided (though plenty of space is found to tell you everything you never wanted to know about the San Diego musicians). The most attractive work, ironically, is the Menotti, even though it’s hard to tell it was written more than 50 years after the Respighi pieces. The chamber orchestra pieces are decently played and the various soloists characterful.

— Matthew Rye

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Ottorino Respighi (9 July 1879 – 18 April 1936) was an Italian composer, violinist, teacher, and musicologist and one of the leading Italian composers of the early 20th century. He studied at the Liceo Musicale di Bologna, and also studied briefly with Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. His compositions range over operas, ballets, orchestral suites, choral songs, chamber music, and transcriptions of Italian compositions of the 16th–18th centuries, but his best known and most performed works are his three orchestral tone poems which brought him international fame: Fountains of Rome (1916), Pines of Rome (1924), and Roman Festivals (1928).

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Edward Downes (17 June 1924 – 10 July 2009) was an English conductor. He began music studies early, earning scholarships that led to training with Hermann Scherchen. Downes had a long association with the Royal Opera House, conducting over 950 performances and becoming Associate Music Director in 1991. He was Music Director of the Australian Opera, notably conducting the first performance at the Sydney Opera House in 1973. He also held leadership roles with the Netherlands Radio Orchestra and the BBC Philharmonic. Downes was a strong advocate of British composers, as well as Prokofiev and Verdi.

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