Ottorino Respighi, the forgotten composer | reviews, news & interviews
Ottorino Respighi, the forgotten composer
Ottorino Respighi, the forgotten composer
Why the Italian composer's reputation needs rescuing
Friday, 05 February 2010
Ottorino Respighi: more than picturesque
The latest subject in the BBC Four series of composer portraits by Christopher Nupen is Ottorino Respighi. One of the most unfairly neglected major composers of the first half of the 20th century, his reputation has suffered less from not being considered at all, but for having been confined to his trilogy of tone poems that evoke respectively the Fountains, the Pines and the Traditional Festivals of Rome. Nupen's film, made in 1982, puts a welcome case for his more challenging but less well-known work.
The latest subject in the BBC Four series of composer portraits by Christopher Nupen is Ottorino Respighi. One of the most unfairly neglected major composers of the first half of the 20th century, his reputation has suffered less from not being considered at all, but for having been confined to his trilogy of tone poems that evoke respectively the Fountains, the Pines and the Traditional Festivals of Rome. Nupen's film, made in 1982, puts a welcome case for his more challenging but less well-known work.
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Comments
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And the Nupen film has
Shostakovich was not only a
Shostakovich didn't actually
Shostakovich didn't actually join the communist party until 1960, I think - without double-checking - I'm right in saying, and felt suicidal about having done it (the Eighth Quartet was his own requiem, or so he claimed at one point). Prokofiev was far from apolitical and wanted to serve the cause of music for all - it's a gross oversimplification to say that he returned to the Soviet Union full-time in 1936 because 'he wasn't much liked in America'. He thought he could continue the lifestyle of six months' touring in the west - where he was still very much in demand as pianist and conductor of his own works - and the rest composing in Russia, where he was given the time and money he'd never had for that in America and France.
But this is a complex issue and not discussable in the comments. What I will say is three cheers for Respighi's fecundity, which shows as richer over time.