Ottorino RESPIGHI (1879-1936) Pini di Roma
[20:06] Fontane di Roma [14:41] Gioachino ROSSINI (1792-1868)
arr. Ottorino RESPIGHI La Boutique Fantasque [34:42]
L’Orchestre de Suisse Romande/Ernest Ansermet (Respighi); London Symphony
Orchestra/Ernest Ansermet (Rossini)
rec. Victoria Hall, Geneva, Switzerland, January 1963 (Respighi), Kingsway
Hall, London, July 1950 (Rossini). ADD
DECCA ELOQUENCE 480 0024 [69:44]
If you want the most opulently recorded and most exciting version of Respighi’s
best known poems and suites, you are unlikely to turn to a disc nearly fifty
years old first. If, on the other hand, you consider that contrary to received
wisdom they are in fact works of considerable imagination and musical invention
- real music in fact rather than a mere succession of spectacular effects
- these performances are well worth hearing. The sound is far from unacceptable
even by modern standards, and the performances are in every way excellent.
Balance, phrasing and tempi are all beautifully controlled. The notorious
recorded nightingale at the end of the Pines of the Janiculum is given
a distant balance so that the listener could almost imagine that the bird
is imagined, not real. It is more the dream of birdsong than a real bird,
and for once the effect sounds poetic rather than merely quaint. The louder
passages of the Pines of the Appian Way are also effective, menacing
and all the more so for being slightly understated. Respighi could certainly
be coarse or corny at times – I still cannot take Feste Romane - but
performances like these make it clear that The Fountains and The
Pines are works of real imagination and beauty.
La Boutique Fantasque was written for Diaghilev’s London ballet season
in 1919. Ansermet conducted both the first performance and this recording.
Although no mention of it is made in the booklet the latter makes numerous
cuts to the score of the ballet as originally published. For the most part
these are of the connecting passages between movements and none of the cuts
are any great loss; possibly they are even a gain when listening at home.
One oddity is that the penultimate bar of the whole work is cut. This makes
no difference to the musical sense but does leave one wondering why it was
done. Not to save time, clearly, so perhaps it means that Ansermet was maintaining
a tradition started in the original performances. I have no idea, and it is
a matter of no musical importance, but it does usefully remind the listener
that this is a performance led by one of the work’s creators, and that this
recording is all the more valuable for this link with its tradition. It is
much more than that, with well judged tempi and a delightful understanding
of the way in which the music, as arranged by Respighi, constantly defeats
our musical expectations and is full of surprises. I first got to know the
work in Arthur Fiedler’s Boston Pops version, but I am very happy to exchange
that somewhat technicolour version for Ansermet’s subtler approach.
Given its age it is not surprising that the orchestra in the ballet does sound
a little underpowered at times, and the internal balance is at times unclear
and the sound somewhat congested in parts. In general the London Symphony
Orchestra at that date do not sound by any means obviously superior to Ansermet’s
usual Suisse Romande, but there are no serious weaknesses in this respect,
and it is an enjoyable and, given Ansermet’s early connection with the work,
valuable recording. As a whole this is yet another really worthwhile resurrection
of Ansermet’s recordings from Eloquence.
John Sheppard