Ottorino Respighi(1879-1936)
- Music Department
- Composer
- Soundtrack
Italian composer who introduced Russian orchestral colour and some of
the violence of Richard Strauss's harmonic techniques into Italian
music. He studied at the Liceo of Bologna and later with Nikolay
Rimsky-Korsakov in St. Petersburg, where he was first violist in the
Opera Orchestra. From his foreign masters Respighi acquired a command
of orchestral colour and an interest in orchestral composition. A piano
concerto by Respighi was performed at Bologna in 1902; a "notturno" for
orchestra was played at a concert in the Metropolitan Opera House that
year. His comic opera Re Enzo and the opera Semirama brought him
recognition and an appointment in 1913 to the St. Cecilia Academy in
Rome as professor of composition. He became director of the
conservatory in 1924 but resigned in 1926. Respighi was drawn to the
sensual, decadent climate of the Rome depicted by the poet Gabriele
D'Annunzio, and in his celebrated suites--Pini di Roma (Pines of Rome,
1923-24) and Fontane di Roma (Fountains of Rome, 1914-16)
especially--he sought to convey the subtlety and colour of the poet's
imagination. Other suites include Vetrate di chiesa (Church Windows,
1927); Gli ucelli (The Birds, 1927); Feste Romane (Roman Festivals,
1929); and Trittico Botticelliano (Botticelli Triptych, 1927, for
chamber orchestra)
