Ottorino Respighi - Impressioni brasiliane; La Boutique fantasque (John Neschling)

Information

Composer: Ottorino Respighi

• Impressioni brasiliane
• La Boutique fantasque

Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège

John Neschling, conductor

Date: 2014

Label: BIS

-----------------------------------------------------------

Review

It only makes sense that a great Italian composer’s evocations of life in Brazil could receive a great performance at the hands of a Belgian orchestra for a Swedish record company, right? This is one of the best things about globalization. John Neschling, whose previous Respighi album was an instant classic, returns for more and delivers top-quality results yet again. The Liège orchestra summons up Brazilian sounds better than one could imagine; listen especially to the seductive woodwind solos in the nocturne, and in particular the fruity, playful timbre of the clarinets. The Brazilian-born Neschling must have infused these players with the spirit of his home country’s dances, but the nocturne takes up half the piece, and the amount of color and vibrancy achievable under the light of the moon is a testament to composer and performers.

 

Then there’s La Boutique fantasque, the ballet based on Rossini tunes, forty-five minutes of pure nonstop good times. I should pause to point out that BIS has, once again, produced the kind of recorded sound which actually makes the interpretations themselves even more praiseworthy: absolute and total clarity, but flattering rather than clinical. Every color and effect Rossini dreamed up is audible; his total mastery of the orchestra, and the orchestra’s total mastery of the music, are on vivid, high-definition display. This is a big improvement over my other favorite Boutique, with Alexander Gibson and the Scottish National Orchestra on Chandos.

 

The piece is unremitting fun, and if I didn’t know it was about toys coming to life in the toy-shop and falling in love, my theory would be that it depicted a three-day-long Italian wedding extravaganza with a whole truck full of wine. I could put the famous second-movement tarantella on repeat — and notice how the cymbal player, not normally someone you’d single out for praise, manages to save the repetitive crash-crash-crash-crash from being sloppy or irritating. The orchestra’s playing throughout is totally exquisite, with the woodwinds again coming up for special commendations. In the “Can-can”, the muted trumpets sound like inspiration for Shostakovich.

 

My colleague Dan Morgan already wrote that this album is something special and I’m inclined to agree. May there be more Respighi forthcoming from Neschling; after two albums, it’s safe to say he is one of the finest advocates this composer has ever had, delivering all the fireworks and the depth too.

 

— Brian Reinhart

-----------------------------------------------------------

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).

***

John Neschling (born May 13 1947, Rio de Janeiro) is a Brazilian conductor. He studied under Hans Swarowsky and Reinhold Schmid in Vienna, and under Leonard Bernstein and Seiji Ozawa in Tanglewood. Neschling has been music director of Teatro Nacional de São Carlos in Lisbon, Sankt Gallen Theater in Switzerland, Teatro Massimo in Palermo and the Bordeaux Opera. During the twelve years under his leadership (1997–2008), the São Paulo State Symphony became a first rate international orchestra, and recorded a series of CDs of Brazilian and international music, winning five Diapason d'Or and one Latin Grammy.

-----------------------------------------------------------