Collection: Ottorino Respighi

Ottorino Respighi, Accademico d’Italia (Bologna, 9 July 1879 – Rome, 18 April 1936), was an Italian composer, musicologist and conductor.

He belonged to the group of musicians who helped renew Italian music in those years, known as the “Generation of the Eighties”, together with Alfredo Casella, Franco Alfano, Gian Francesco Malipiero and Ildebrando Pizzetti. Respighi composed works in many genres (sonatas, concertos, suites, operas, song cycles for voice and piano, and more), but he is best known for a series of symphonic poems devoted to Rome (the Roman Trilogy), of which the second, Pines of Rome, is the most celebrated and by far the most frequently recorded.

He was also active as an arranger and musicologist; this work includes Ancient Airs and Dances for Lute (Suites I, II and III), orchestrations of Renaissance pieces, as well as orchestral transcriptions of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Passacaglia BWV 582, Rachmaninoff’s Études-Tableaux and pieces originally written for piano by Gioachino Rossini. He also took an interest in Gregorian chant and composed the Concerto gregoriano for violin and orchestra (1921) and the symphonic suite Church Windows (1926), based on Gregorian melodies.

Respighi on Reference Music Store

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