Ottorino Respighi

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Ottorino Respighi, photograph from 1934

Ottorino Respighi (born July 9, 1879 in Bologna , † April 18, 1936 in Rome ) was an Italian composer . He is considered a leading exponent of newer Italian instrumental music .

Life

Respighi was the son of a piano teacher and received violin and piano lessons as a child . From 1891 to 1899 he studied violin and viola with Federico Sarti and composition with Luigi Torchi and Giuseppe Martucci at the Liceo musicale in Bologna .

After graduating from the Liceo , he had a brief position as violist in the orchestra of the city of Bologna and then in 1900/01 and again in 1902/03 accepted an engagement at the Opera Italiana in the theater in Saint Petersburg . There he met Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov , with whom he took a few composition lessons and whose colorful orchestral treatment strongly influenced him. In 1902 he also briefly studied with Max Bruch in Berlin . From 1903 to 1908 he worked again as an orchestral musician in Bologna, increasingly emerging with his own compositions and arrangements of baroque works. A second stay in Berlin in 1908/09, where he earned his living as a pianist in a singing school, broadened his musical horizons again and earned him his first compositional recognition outside of Italy.

With the performance of his solo cantata Aretusa in 1911, Respighi increasingly turned to piano accompaniment . Since his hopes for a permanent position at the Liceo musicale in Bologna were not fulfilled, he accepted a professorship for composition at the Liceo musicale di S. Cecilia in Rome in 1913 . From 1915 on, his students included the composer and singer Elsa Olivieri Sangiacomo , whom Respighi married in 1919. The marriage remained childless.

Respighi's final breakthrough as a composer came in 1916 with the very successful performance of his Fontane di Roma . In 1923 he became director of the Conservatorio di S. Cecilia (as the Liceo musicale di S. Cecilia was called since 1919), but gave up this position again in 1926 because it did not allow him enough time to compose. However, he continued teaching until 1935.

In his later years Respighi made numerous trips at home and abroad to perform his works, performing both as a conductor and as a piano accompanist (mostly his wife), and occasionally as a solo pianist. His music was also very popular with the fascist government, but Respighi did not get involved with it.

Grave of Ottorino Respighi in Certosa di Bologna, Italy

From 1933, Respighi was unable to complete any new original works for health reasons. He died of a heart condition at the age of almost 57. His wife Elsa survived him by 60 years and during this time she took great care of his musical heritage.

style

After his stay in Russia, Respighi's musical language expanded after his early classical works. From now on, free form, extended harmony and a wide range of musical expression determined the compositions. According to Piero Santi , Respighi, together with Ildebrando Pizzetti , Gian Francesco Malipiero and Alfredo Casella, belong to the “Generazione dell'ottanta” (generation of those born around 1880). These composers stood up against the overwhelming power of veristic opera by z. B. Giuseppe Verdi and what they considered to be too strong an influence from France and Germany on Italian opera culture and researched libraries and archives for sources of older Italian music, which they then used in their works to create a contemporary musical culture that also has influences from all over Europe flowed in, processed. Respighi himself opened up in his music e.g. B. bitonality . His orchestral works reveal influences of French impressionism ; Maurice Ravel's musical language was very close to him. But Respighi was also a representative of classicism in Italy. Unlike in France, where the group Les Six propagated a new simplicity, which above all reawakened the lightness of the Viennese classic , Respighi turned primarily to the Italian music of the Baroque and Renaissance , whose music he z. Sometimes poured into a new sound garment (orchestra suite Gli Uccelli [ The Birds ]) or used to reproduce works in stile antico such as B. Antiche danze ed arie per liuto .

Works

Operas

  • Rè Enzo (German King Enzo ; 1905). Comic opera in 3 acts. Libretto : Alberto Donini. Premiere March 12, 1905 Bologna (Teatro del Corso)
  • Al mulino (1908). Fragment, not listed
  • Semirama. Poema tragico (1910). 3 acts. Libretto: Alessandro Ceré. Premiere 1910 Bologna (Teatro comunale)
  • Marie Victoire (1912-1914). Opera in 4 acts (5 images). Libretto: Edmond Guiraud (1912–1914; based on his play of the same name [premiered in 1911 Paris]). WP January 27, 2004 Rome (Teatro dell'Opera); DEA April 9, 2009 Berlin ( Deutsche Oper )
  • La bella addormentata nel bosco (La bella dormente nel bosco). Fiaba musicale (German Sleeping Beauty ; 1916–1921). 3 acts. Libretto: Gian Bistolfi, based on Perrault. Premiere 1922 Rome (Teatro Odescalchi)
  • Belfagor. Commedia lirica (1921-1922). Prologue, 2 acts and epilogue. Libretto: Claudio Guastalla, based on Ercole Luigi Morselli. Premiere 1923 Milan ( Teatro alla Scala )
  • La campana sommersa (Eng. The sunken bell ; 1925–1926). Opera in 4 acts. Libretto: Claudio Guastalla, based on Gerhart Hauptmann . Premiere (in German text version by Werner Wolff) November 18, 1927 Hamburg ( State Opera ). Italian premiere: April 1929 Rome (Teatro dell'Opera)
  • Maria egiziaca ( Eng . The Egyptian Maria ; 1931–1932). Mystery in 1 act (3 episodes). Libretto: Claudio Guastalla. Premiere 1932 New York and Venice
  • La fiamma. Melodramma (Eng. The Flame ; 1933). 3 nudes (4 images). Libretto: Claudio Guastalla, based on Hans Wiers-Jenssen . Premiere Rome 1934 (Teatro dell'Opera)
  • Lucrezia. Istoria (1935/1936). 1 act (3 scenes). Libretto: Claudio Guastalla. Fragment, supplemented by Elsa Respighi . Premiere 1937 Milan (Teatro alla Scala)

Ballets

  • La boutique fantasque (Eng. The Magic Shop ; 1918). Ballet on themes by Gioachino Rossini . Premiere 1919 London (Alhambra Theater)
  • Scherzo Veneziano. Azione coreografica (1920). Libretto: Ileana Leonidov. WP 1920 Rome (Teatro Costanzi)
  • Sèvres de la vieille France (1920). Ballet on French subjects of the 17th and 18th centuries. WP 1920 Rome (Teatro Costanzi)
  • La pentola magica. Azione coreografica (Eng. The magic pot ; 1920). On Russian folk song themes. WP 1920 Rome (Teatro Costanzi)
  • Scherzo Veneziano. Commedia coreografica (1920)
  • Gli uccelli (Eng. The Birds ; 1928). Ballet on subjects of the 17th and 18th centuries. Premiere 1933 San Remo (Casinò municipale)
  • Belkis, regina di Saba (Eng. Belkis, Queen of Saba ; 1931). Ballet in 7 pictures. Libretto: Claudio Guastalla. Premiere 1932 Milan (Teatro alla Scala)

Symphonic poems

  • Roman trilogy , consisting of
    • Fontane di Roma (Eng. The Fountains of Rome ; 1916) - La Fontana in Valle Giulia all 'Alba; La Fontana di Tritone al Mattino; La Fontana di Trevi al Meriggio; La Fontana di Villa Medici al Tramonto.
    • Pini di Roma (Eng. The pines of Rome ; 1924) - The pines of Villa Borghese; Pine trees near a catacomb; The pine trees on the Gianicolo; The pine trees of the Appian Way.
    • Feste Romane (German Roman festivals ; 1928) - Circenses, The Jubilee; Ottobrata; Befana.
  • Vetrate di Chiesa (German church window ; 1926) - The flight into Egypt; The Archangel Michael; The morning mass of St. Klara; St. Gregory the Great.
  • Gli uccelli (Eng. The birds ; 1927)
  • Impressioni brasiliane (German Brazilian impressions ; 1927)
  • Trittico Botticelliano (German: Three Pictures by Botticelli ; 1927)

Others

  • Christ , Biblical Cantata (1900)
  • Piano Concerto in A minor (1902)
  • Burlesca for orchestra (1906)
  • Pastorale for violin and string ensemble (1908)
  • Sinfonia drammatica (1914)
  • Three suites Antiche danze ed arie per liuto ( Ger . Old Dances and Wise Men for Lute ; 1916/1923/1931) Transcription and arrangement for orchestra
  • Àdagio con Variazioni for violoncello and orchestra (1921)
  • Concerto gregoriano for violin and orchestra (1921)
  • Concerto all'antica for violin and orchestra (1923)
  • Rossiniana , orchestral suite after Gioachino Rossini (1925)
  • Concerto in modo misolidio for piano and orchestra (1925)
  • Toccata (1928)
  • Metamorphoseon, Modes XII (1930)
  • Lauda per la natività del signore for mixed choir, solos and orchestra (1930)
  • Concerto a cinque for oboe, trumpet, violin, double bass, piano and string ensemble (1933)
  • Piano quintet in F minor
  • String quartet in D major
  • Suite for organ and strings
  • Organ music
  • Songs
  • “Variazioni” for guitar, undated manuscript, probably written around 1909; New edition by Ricordi
  • Arrangements of works by old masters, for example Passacaglia in C minor based on a model by Johann Sebastian Bach (1930)

Web links

Commons : Ottorino Respighi  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Text by Christian Kuhnt on the CD Respighi - Antiche danze de Arie - Trittico Botticelliano - Gli Ucelli, The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Hugh Wolff , 1994, Teldec 4509-91 / 729-2
  2. ↑ In this work Respighi takes up translations of lute and guitar tablatures from the 16th and 17th centuries edited by the Italian musicologist Oscar Chilesotti . a. Simone Molinaro , Vincenzo Galilei , Ludovico Roncalli , Giovanni Batista Besardo and anonymous composers of the time. In the subtitle Respighi then also calls the work Trascrizione libera per orchestra (free transcription for orchestra).
personal data
SURNAME Respighi, Ottorino
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian composer
DATE OF BIRTH July 9, 1879
PLACE OF BIRTH Bologna
DATE OF DEATH April 18, 1936
Place of death Rome