Info:
Duration: 75’ 00”
Year of production: 1982
Accolade:
International Emmy Nomination, New York 1982
Who was Ottorino Respighi? An Italian composer, born in Bologna in 1879. Nature endowed him with the most prodigious gifts and he quickly became the leading Italian Symphonist in the first half of the 20th century. But today he is generally thought of as the composer of large scale descriptive works, because of his brilliant use of orchestral colours, his skilful evocation of mood, and the international success of his three Roman Tone Poems; the Feste Romane, the Pines of Rome, and Fountains of Rome.
These are not his best works, nor are they his most characteristic music, but they caught the spirit of the age in which they were written, even if they have tended to obscure both the range and the quality of his compositions.
"I use nature," he said, "as a point of departure; so that I may recall memories and visions." But he added: "I am only a composer – always a composer. I could never have been anything else."
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Insofar as Respighi is known at all to the general public today, it is mostly through the three Roman Tone Poems, “The Fountains of Rome”, “The Pines of Rome” and “The Feste Romane”.
There are no interviews in the film. It consists of sequences shot in Italy (which so profoundly influenced Respighi’s creative spirit), a commentary written by Michael and Christopher Nupen and the music, filmed and edited in an unusual and colourful way.
The film is also a tribute to Respighi’s wife, Elsa Sangiacomo, who, forty-seven years after Respighi’s death, was still a major figure in Italian musical life, devoted to her memories, both of the man and of his music.
The performers are: Vladimir Ashkenazy, the Swedish Radio Orchestra, the Allegri String Quartet, Raphael Sommer, Zehava Gal and Christina Falk.
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