Respighi's The Pines of Rome

Synopsis

Today marks the birthday in 1879 of Ottorino Respighi, a rare Italian composer more famous for orchestral works than operas. And no wonder – Respighi was a master orchestrator, learning his craft first-hand from the brilliant Russian orchestrator Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov during the time the young Italian served as principal violist in the pit band of the Russian Imperial Theater in St. Petersburg.

One of Respighi’s best-loved works is The Pines of Rome. It includes a slow section depicting a full moon shining on the pines growing on the Janiculum hill west of Rome. The music includes the song of a nightingale, played from a phonograph record of an actual nightingale. That record, made in 1910, was the first ever made of live bird song, and using it as part of Respighi’s orchestration was cutting-edge stuff in 1924.

This recording was made by the Hungarian conductor Antal Dorati, who was known noted for his fiery temper, but Dorati had an equally strong sense of humor, so in the 1950s, when one of his Minneapolis Symphony musicians substituted a Spike Jones once during a rehearsal, of the Respighi piece, Dorati got the joke and laughed along with everybody else.

Music Played in Today's Program

Ottorino Respighi (1879-1936) – Feste Romane (Montréal Symphony; Charles Dutoit, cond.) London 410 145

Spike Jones (1911 – 1965) – Rhapsody from Hunger (Spike Jones and his City Slickers) RCA 3235

On This Day

Births

• 1879 - Italian composer Ottorino Respighi, in Bologna

• 1915 - American composer David Diamond, in Rochester, N.Y.

• 1938 - Japanese-American composer Paul Chihara, in Seattle

Deaths

• 1747 - Italian opera composer, Giovanni Bonocini, age 76, in Vienna; He was the famous (and unsuccessful) rival of Handel's for the favor of the opera-loving public in London

• 1960 - American composer Edward Burlington Hill, age 87, in Francesrtown, New Hampshire

• 1984 - American composer and teacher Randall Thompson, age 85, in Boston

Premieres

• 1957 - Hartmann: opera "Simplicius Simplicissimus" (revised version), in Mannheim at the Nationaltheater; This opera was premiered in a concert version in Munich by the Bavarian Radio on April 2, 1948

• 1969 - Lennox Berkeley: Symphony No. 3, in Cheltenham, England

• 2001 - Steven Stucky: "Three Little Pieces for David," for piano (written for the 65th birthday of conductor David Zinman), by Yefim Bronfman at the Aspen Music Festival in Colorado.