Ottorino Respighi - Songs (Ian Bostridge; Saskia Giorgini)

Information

Composer: Ottorino Respighi

1. Deità silvane, P107: No. 1, I fauni
2. Deità silvane, P107: No. 2, Musica in horto
3. Deità silvane, P107: No. 3, Egle
4. Deità silvane, P107: No. 4, Acqua
5. Deità silvane, P107: No. 5, Crepuscolo
6. 6 Liriche, P90: No. 1, O falce di luna
7. 6 Liriche, P90: No. 3, Au milieu du jardin
8. 6 Liriche, P90: No. 6, Pioggia
9. 6 Liriche, P97: No. 1, Notte
10. 6 Liriche, P97: No. 3, Le repos en Égypte
11. 6 Liriche, P97: No. 4, Noël ancien
12. Nebbie, P. 64
13. La statua, P. 122
14. 4 Liriche, P125: No. 2, La naiade
15. 4 Liriche, P125: No. 3, La sera
16. 6 Pieces for Piano, P44: No. 3, Notturno
17. 5 Canti all’antica, P71: No. 4, Bella porta di rubini
18. Stornellatrice, P. 69
19. 4 Scottish Songs, P143: No. 1, When the Kye Come Hame
20. 4 Scottish Songs, P143: No. 2, Within a Mile of Edinburgh
21. 4 Scottish Songs, P143: No. 3, My Heart's in the Highlands
22. 4 Scottish Songs, P143: No. 4, The Piper of Dundee
23. Canzone sarda, P. 155
24. Le funtanelle, P. 164 (Canzone dell'abruzzo)

Ian Bostridge, tenor

Saskia Giorgini, piano

Date: 2021

Label: PentaTone

https://www.pentatonemusic.com/product/respighi-songs/

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Review

Ian Bostridge and Ottorino Respighi are two names I never imagined would be in the same sentence, much less the same recording – in a rare collection of songs that are usually heard mixed in with other early 20th-century composers who enjoyed symbolist texts and saturated harmonies. In the booklet notes, Bostridge explains that this music was a lockdown discovery for him in what he calls ‘a treasure house of colourful and imaginative musical writing’. I agree, and I suspect so would Veronika Kincses, whose 1999 Respighi disc (Hungaroton) is one of the few others out there, and covers much of the same repertoire but with a lush voice that makes her disc a polar-opposite experience to Bostridge’s.

The many regions of Respighi’s brain are intentionally visited by Bostridge. Besides composing his well-known tone poems, Respighi was a musicologist who was deeply interested in ancient airs and dances, a linguist who sympathetically harmonised Scottish texts (an interesting, not unwelcome cultural collision), and, more personally, a depressive human being who could and would open his soul to his listeners in ‘Nebbie’ (‘Mists’), one of his most famous songs. The Respighi who composed the lovely, picturesque Christmas oratorio Lauda per la natività del Signore is also heard in the wide-eyed innocence of two Christmas songs, ‘Le repos en Égypte’ and ‘Noël ancien’.

The core of the recital is songs written to texts by such as Gabriele D’Annunzio, Antonio Rubino and like-minded poets, some of which can seem affected: one particular line by Vittoria Aganoor Pompilj, ‘Oh, to be plant, to be a leaf’ is set to music with a straight face. Respighi observed them all with great respect. Many of his through-composed songs use the poet’s stanzas like continuing chapters in a hothouse novel. On a micro level, hardly a semicolon passes without a poetic musical reaction.

The composer’s vast but precise use of harmony and colour – equal to and much like Debussy’s – is much in evidence in the consistently engrossing piano-writing: even the spare accompaniment of ‘Au milieu du jardin’ is a model of a few well-chosen notes. This master of musical description often limits himself to scene-painting, as in ‘Notte’, where he sets the scene and then allows the words to make their point. The solo-piano ‘Notturno’ included in the middle of the programme, beautifully played by Saskia Giorgini, is an apt continuation of the songs. And the vocal lines? Respighi had a number of female singers in his life, and these songs show they were quite well served.

Vocally, an echt British singer such as Bostridge might seem an unlikely interpreter and initially the outlook isn’t promising, with his nervous vibrato emerging strongly in the opening song. Soon he establishes a strong sense of cantabile, serving the rhapsodic qualities of the Italian text, reimagined with his own singular vocal resources. In the joyful ‘Le funtanelle’ (‘The Fountains’), Bostridge veers dangerously close to Italianate caricature. But in other songs he explores the lower depths of his range effectively in moments where the music calls for a sense of emotional desperation. Next, Bostridge is releasing an album of arias by Cavalli, Stradella, Cesti and Vivaldi. Might he be entering an Italian period?

-- David Patrick Stearns, Gramophone

More reviews:
https://www.classicstoday.com/review/respighi-songs-fine-dry-art-with-ian-bostridge/

https://www.classical-music.com/reviews/choral-song/respighi-songs/

https://www.allmusic.com/album/respighi-songs-mw0003564369

https://limelightmagazine.com.au/reviews/respighi-songs-ian-bostridge-saskia-giorgini/

https://www.2mbsfinemusicsydney.com/respighisongs/

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Ottorino Respighi (9 July 1879 – 18 April 1936) was an Italian composer, violinist, teacher and musicologist. He is best known for his orchestral music, particularly the three Roman tone poems: Fountains of Rome (Fontane di Roma), Pines of Rome (I pini di Roma), and Roman Festivals (Feste romane). His musicological interest in 16th-, 17th- and 18th-century music led him to compose pieces based on the music of these periods. Although Respighi was known primarily as composers of instrumental and orchestral music, he also wrote a number of operas, the most famous of which is La fiamma.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottorino_Respighi

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Ian Bostridge (born 25 December 1964 in London) is an English tenor, well known for his performances as an opera and lieder singer. Bostridge only began singing professionally at age 27 and made his Wigmore Hall debut in 1993. His operatic debut was in 1994, at age 29. An EMI Classics exclusive artist since 1996, his CDs have won all of the major record prizes including Grammy Award (15 times nominee) and several Gramophone Awards. Bostridge was for a time the music columnist for Standpoint magazine. A collection of his writings on music, A Singer's Notebook, was published by Faber and Faber in September 2011.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Bostridge

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Saskia Giorgini (born 1985) is an Italian-Dutch pianist. Her teachers included Riccardo Risaliti, Leonid Margarius, Louis Lortie, Claudio Voghera, Enrico Pace and Pavel Gililov. Giorgini won the Salzburg International Mozart Competition in 2016, and made her debut at the Vienna Musikverein in February 2017 playing an all Mozart recital. Her recording of Liszt’s Harmonies Poétiques et Religieuses was released on the Pentatone label in 2021 to great acclaim, winning a Diaposon d’Or. Saskia Giorgini is a Bösendorfer Artist. She holds a professorship for piano at the Anton Bruckner Privatuniversität in Linz, Austria.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saskia_Giorgini

https://saskiagiorgini.com/

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