Ottorino Respighi
The Pines of Rome
Laboring under the shadows of such greats as Puccini, Rossini, and Verdi, many lesser Italian composers at the turn of the 20th century found that, to their countrymen, music meant only opera. Ottorino Respighi is credited with being the first Italian composer in that period to achieve both fame and popularity for purely orchestral works. His three most famous works, the tone poems Fontane di Roma (Fountains of Rome, 1917), Pini di Roma (Pines of Rome, 1924), and Feste Romana (Roman Festivals, 1929), exemplify the eclectic, pictorial style that won him such popularity.
Respighi began his music education at the Liceo in his native Bologna in 1899. In 1900 he accepted a position as principal violist with the Imperial Opera in St. Petersburg, Russia. There he studied orchestration with Rimsky-Korsakov, to whom Respighi always acknowledged a great debt. After additional study with Max Bruch in Berlin and many years working as a violinist or violist for various musical groups in Italy, he was appointed professor at the St. Cecilia Conservatory in Rome in 1913. This position gave him enough time to compose, and he achieved his first success in 1917 with the tone poem Fountains of Rome. Respighi was also interested in preserving renaissance and medieval musical traditions, and at the same time Fountains was published he completed the first of what would eventually be three suites based on airs for lute, which he orchestrated for piano and strings (Antiche arie de danze per liuto, Ancient Airs and Dances for Lute).
After several years of contemplating scenes for a sequel to Fountains, Respighi begain work on Pines of Rome in 1924. The piece combines his skills in colorful orchestration and evocative composition with his interest in older music, including references to medieval plainchant and to folk tunes — in this case, children’s songs that his wife, Elsa, an accomplished singer and composer, had taught him. Although thematically straight forward, the work requires virtuoso playing from each section of the orchestra and features unusual rhythmic patterns. The score also calls for some unusual instruments: six buccinae, medieval precursors to trumpets and trombones, in the fourth movement, as well as a record ing of a nightingale at the end of the third. Respighi noted that modern brass could be used to replace the buccinae, but there was no substitute for the recording because, as he explained later, “I simply realized that no combination of wind instruments could quite counterfeit the real bird’s song.” Respighi did not expect Italian audiences, fond as they were of their operas, to welcome the work; during rehearsals for the first performance he is quoted as saying “Let them boo … what do I care?”
The premiere was held on December 14, 1924, at the Teatro Augusteo in Rome, and just as expected, the audience did boo — at the atonal trumpet blasts at the end of the first movement, and at the nightingale. But the finale’s triumphal brass won the audience over and earned the piece a standing ovation. It has enjoyed popularity ever since, with Respighi’s friend Arturo Toscanini championing the work in the United States and leading its premiere in New York in 1926.
The work’s extremely specific musical imagery and brilliant scoring to achieve this effect has been cited by many early Hollywood composers as an inspiration. Indeed, Respighi was so specific in what he intended that he published descriptions of the settings he envisioned for each movement at the beginning of the score. For the first, Pines of the Villa Borghese, he wrote:
“Children are at play in the pine groves of Villa Borghese; they dance round in circles. They play at soldiers, marching and fighting, they are wrought up by their own cries like swallows at evening, they come and go in swarms.”
The section opens brilliantly and moves in flurries of sound, with snatches of military fanfares and children’s songs, including the Italian version of Ring-around-the-rosy, shouted out by brass or woodwinds and accented by colorful percussion (ratchet, triangle). The movement builds to a bustling crescendo while a trumpet blares a discordant note. This has been likened to children “blowing a raspberry,” but to this mother’s ear it sounds just like a parent shouting “Enough!” And, as Respighi writes:
“Suddenly the scene changes — we see the shades of the pine trees fringing the entrance to a catacomb. From the depth rises the sound of a mournful chant, floating through the air like a solemn hymn, and gradually and mysteriously dispersing.”
Pines Near a Catacomb begins with solemn chords in the low strings, over which the trombones sound a quiet theme reminiscent of Gregorian chant. This develops until an offstage trumpet introduces a second motif. As the trumpet ends, the strings begin a rhythmic pulsing, changing meter from 6/4 to 5/4. But though the pulsing gradually crescendos, the two original themes are never lost: the brass continues to play the chant, then a portion of the trumpet’s tune, underneath the strings. The movement dies away as a quiet piano cadenza opens the next movement, The Pines of the Janiculum.
“There is a thrill in the air: the pine-trees of the Janiculum stand distinctly outlined in the clear light of the full moon. A nightingale is singing.”
A clarinet plays a long, rubato solo over soft, sustained string chords. Flutes and strings develop this first motif, then the oboe introduces a rising and falling theme that is quickly taken up by the strings. Though the movement always keeps a fluid, forward momentum, the overall effect is calm and reflective, never agitated. It rises to an ethereal sound with the addition of flowing arpeggios in celeste, harp, and piano, then the clarinet sounds a long sustained note and the recorded nightingale makes its appearance over softly trilling strings. The movement ends in quiet contemplation. But this mood is quickly broken by piano, low brass, and low strings sounding insistent, repeated eighth notes over marching fifths in quarter notes, depicting:
“Misty dawn on the Appian Way: solitary pine trees guarding the magic landscape; the muffled, ceaseless rhythm of unending footsteps. The poet has a fantastic vision of bygone glories: trumpets sound and, in the brilliance of the newly-risen sun, a consular army bursts forth towards the Sacred Way, mounting in triumph to the Capitol.”
The army of the finale, Pines of the Appian Way, approaches somewhat ominously, with bass clarinet and low brass sounding fragmentary phrases of military fanfares while the upper strings begin to pulse in descending half-steps. An extended English horn solo marks the dawn and the brass begins to call out, both offstage and on. The movement builds to an inexorable climax and — whether it be the army Respighi envisioned or the flying whales of a recent Disney movie — the listener cannot escape the image of some great body in glorious, triumphant motion.
April 13, 2003