Ottorino Respighi - La Boutique fantasque; La pentola magica (Gianandrea Noseda)

Information

Composer: Ottorino Respighi

• La Boutique fantasque, P. 120
• La pentola magica, P. 129
• Prelude and Fugue in D major, P. 158 (after J. S. Bach)

BBC Philharmonic Orchestra

Gianandrea Noseda, conductor

Date: 2002

Label: Chandos

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Review

Noseda’s vigorous account of the under-recorded La Boutique fantasque makes a fine coupling with two rarities which similarly show off Respighi’s brilliance as an orchestrator of others’ music.

La Pentola magica (‘The magic pot’), dating from 1920, is a ballet-score for which the scenario has been lost, though the titles of the 10 brief movements give an idea of the Russian story behind it – ‘Armenian Song’ (which features Hannah Sawle’s fresh soprano voice), ‘Scene of the Tsarevitch’, ‘Dance of the Tartar Archers’, ‘Cossack Dance’ and so on. Respighi drew on relatively neglected Russian composers such as Grechaninov, Arensky and Rubinstein, and Polish- born Pachulski, as well as including his arrangements of Russian folk themes. Slow music and a relaxed mood predominates in evocative orchestration which bears witness to Respighi’s enjoyment of the exercise.

His joy in orchestral sound is even more striking in this exuberant account of an arrangement of Bach’s D major Prelude and Fugue, with rich, weighty brass and dramatic contrasts of timbre and dynamic. The performance of La Boutique fantasque has similar zest. The playing of the BBC Philharmonic may not be quite as polished as that of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra under Charles Dutoit, whose decca disc was recently deleted, but it is generally more expressive, with rubato that dancers would not welcome in a staging. The speeds tend to be a degree more extreme, which brings an apt and enjoyable sense of danger in the pointing of the tricky woodwind flurries dotted through the score. The Chandos sound, satisfyingly full and bright, matches the performance.

— Edward Greenfield

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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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Gianandrea Noseda (born 23 April 1964) is an Italian conductor. He graduated from the Milan Conservatory and furthered his conducting studies with Donato Renzetti, Myung-Whun Chung and Valery Gergiev. Noseda is currently the music director of the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, D.C.; Generalmusikdirektor of Zurich Opera; principal guest conductor of the London Symphony; and the music director of the Tsinandali Festival in Georgia. He was also Chief Conductor of the BBC Philharmonic from 2002 to 2011, and has conducted many recordings for the Chandos label.

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