MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2024
60,000 reviews
... and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             


Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger

REVIEW


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Chandos recordings
All Chandos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 

 

alternatively
CD: MDT AmazonUK AmazonUS

Ottorino RESPIGHI (1879-1936)
Works for Piano and Orchestra
Toccata for Piano and Orchestra (1928) [27:09]
Concerto in modo misolidio (1925) [41:29]
Sandro Ivo Bartoli (piano)
Staatsorchester der Sächsische Landesbühnen/Michele Carulli
rec. no date given, Kammermusiksaal der Hochschule für Musik Carl-Maria von Weber, Dresden. DDD
BRILLIANT CLASSICS 94055 [68:42]

Experience Classicsonline




Think of this disc as Respighi's piano concertos excluding the early Concerto in A minor (recorded by Chandos) and the Fantasia Slava.

OK so the title Toccata does not lead us to expect a grand concerto but that is what we get. This beefy three movement work is strong on clamorous rhetoric in the outward facing parts but has a place for delicious quiet and contemplation in the centrepiece (4:27). If you have heard Respighi's orchestrations of Bach organ works and liked them then you will be at home with the Toccata. In the first and third movements the invention mediates between Rachmaninov's grandiloquence and Bachian rectitude. There are some flighty forays across the heavens too. The finale is more playful and once bows in the direction of Wagner. The Toccata was premiered in 1928 in the Carnegie Hall by Mengelberg with the NYPO and the composer at the piano just as was the Misolidio three years before.

The Concerto in Modo Misolidio is in the line of plainchant-influenced works that also includes the Concerto Gregoriano (1921) the Quartetto Dorico (1924) and the piano solo Tre preludi sopra melodie Gregoriano (1920). The composer had married Elsa Olivieri Sangiacomo in 1919. She was herself something of an authority on plainchant. The pearly chimes and charms of the Misolidio marry a Rachmaninovian pesante quality with the same suffocating drapes of plainchant to be heard at times in the Roman poems and in Vetrate di Chiesa. Bartoli and Carulli pull no punches and much of this is on the grandest scale without evicting prayerful intimacy.

Here is a chance to acquire - at minimum outlay - Respighi's two mature works for piano and orchestra. Not to be missed if you have a place in your heart for heroic piano concertos of a Rachmaninovian caste matched up with Respighi's gloriously overblown bombast and zest. The notes are by the pianist.

Rob Barnett



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 


EXPLORE MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL

Making a Donation to MusicWeb

Writing CD reviews for MWI

About MWI
Who we are, where we have come from and how we do it.

Site Map

How to find a review

How to find articles on MusicWeb
Listed in date order

Review Indexes
   By Label
      Select a label and all reviews are listed in Catalogue order
   By Masterwork
            Links from composer names (eg Sibelius) are to resource pages with links to the review indexes for the individual works as well as other resources.

Themed Review pages

Jazz reviews

 

Discographies
   Composer
      Composer surveys
   National
      Unique to MusicWeb -
a comprehensive listing of all LP and CD recordings of given works
.
Prepared by Michael Herman

The Collector’s Guide to Gramophone Company Record Labels 1898 - 1925
Howard Friedman

Book Reviews

Complete Books
We have a number of out of print complete books on-line

Interviews
With Composers, Conductors, Singers, Instumentalists and others
Includes those on the Seen and Heard site

Nostalgia

Nostalgia CD reviews

Records Of The Year
Each reviewer is given the opportunity to select the best of the releases

Monthly Best Buys
Recordings of the Month and Bargains of the Month

Comment
Arthur Butterworth Writes

An occasional column

Phil Scowcroft's Garlands
British Light Music articles

Classical blogs
A listing of Classical Music Blogs external to MusicWeb International

Reviewers Logs
What they have been listening to for pleasure

Announcements

 

Community
Bulletin Board

Give your opinions or seek answers

Reviewers
Past and present

Helpers invited!

Resources
How Did I Miss That?

Currently suspended but there are a lot there with sound clips


Composer Resources

British Composers

British Light Music Composers

Other composers

Film Music (Archive)
Film Music on the Web (Closed in December 2006)

Programme Notes
For concert organizers

External sites
British Music Society
The BBC Proms
Orchestra Sites
Recording Companies & Retailers
Online Music
Agents & Marketing
Publishers
Other links
Newsgroups
Web News sites etc

PotPourri
A pot-pourri of articles

MW Listening Room
MW Office

Advice to Windows Vista users  
Questionnaire    
Site History  
What they say about us
What we say about us!
Where to get help on the Internet
CD orders By Special Request
Graphics archive
Currency Converter
Dictionary
Magazines
Newsfeed  
Web Ring
Translation Service

Rules for potential reviewers :-)
Do Not Go Here!
April Fools






Untitled Document


Reviews from previous months
Join the mailing list and receive a hyperlinked weekly update on the discs reviewed. details
We welcome feedback on our reviews. Please use the Bulletin Board
Please paste in the first line of your comments the URL of the review to which you refer.