Alongside Puccini, Ottorino Respighi is the best-known Italian composer from the first half of the twentieth century, but his reputation rests almost exclusively on his ‘Roman Trilogy’: The Fountains of Rome, The Pines of Rome and Roman Festivals. The great popularity of these tone poems has overshadowed the greater part of his production, including the three orchestral works gathered here. Ballata delle gnomidi (The Ballad of the Gnomes) was composed in 1920 – chronologically between The Fountains of Rome and The Pines of Rome – and was inspired by a poem depicting satanic rituals, sexual abandonment and blood sacrifice. Respighi matches this with music comparable to certain pages from Richard Strauss’s opera Salome in terms of the opulence of its orchestration and its exotic – and erotic – atmosphere. The Ballata is here framed by two later and longer works. Respighi composed Metamorphoseon in 1930, for the fiftieth anniversary of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and it is in fact something of a concerto for orchestra. The 30-minute long work consists of a theme and twelve variations or 'modes', an allusion to the different ways in which the music can be transformed by allowing various instruments or sections to shine. The disc closes with the suite from Belkis, Regina di Saba, a full-length ballet depicting the encounter between the Queen of Sheba and Solomon. The original score involved a massive orchestra including zithers, wind machine, choir, soloists and narrator as well as an off-stage brass ensemble, but Respighi omitted the vocal parts and the exotic instruments when he prepared a suite for concert use. John Neschling has previously recorded two acclaimed discs of Respighi’s music for BIS. The latest instalment also featured l’Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège, in a performance of Impressioni brasiliane which the reviewer on German web site Klassik Heute described as ‘a true showpiece of kaleidoscopic and brilliant colours and subtle humour.’
