Respighi, Ottorino

Respighi, Ottorino
String Quartet No. 4 in D

Ottorino Respighi (1879-1936) is one of those composers who, despite a varied and often highquality oeuvre thoroughly accessible to a broad classically-minded public, are remembered primarily for a single work or group of works. We need only think of the many composers of the past three-hundred years of European music history who have suffered much the same fate: Johann Pachelbel (Canon in D major), Tomaso Albinoni (Adagio in G minor), Antonio Vivaldi (The Four Seasons), Niels Gade (String Octet in F major, op. 17), Max Bruch (Violin Concerto No. 1 in G minor, op. 23), Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (Scheherazade, op. 35), Eugen d’Albert (Tiefland), Pietro Mascagni (Cavalleria Rusticana), Gustav Holst (The Planets, op. 32), George Enescu (Rumanian Rhapsody No. 1 in A major, op. 11. no. 1), Carl Orff (Carmina Burana), Joaquín Rodrigo (Concierto de Aranjuez), or Henryk Gorécki (Symphony No. 3, op. 36), to mention only a few. In Respighi’s case it is his colorful trilogy of symphonic poems devoted to the “eternal city” of Rome: Fontane di Roma (“The Fountains of Rome,” 1916, P106), Pini di Roma (“The Pines of Rome,” 1924, P141), and Feste Romane (“Roman Carnivals,” 1928, P 157), all three of which are regularly heard in the concert hall and released in new recordings. …

Full preface / Ganzes Vorwort > HERE