Wow! Did you know that Respighi’s widow died in 1996? That’s as crazy to contemplate as the fact that Gustav Mahler (whose birthday it was on Tuesday) would have turned 80 on the day Ringo Starr was born. And of course, there are those photos of Alma talking with Leonard Bernstein. History is collapsing in on itself like a telescope!

Respighi’s wife, Elsa, outlived him by some 60 years. A singer and composer herself, she died one week shy of her 102nd birthday. She remained her husband’s biggest cheerleader, tirelessly promoting his music, after his own untimely death in 1936, at the age of 55, and even completed his last opera, “Lucrezia.”

Respighi, of course, is best known for his trilogy of opulent, at times rafter-rattling tone poems celebrating the scenes and history of Rome – “Fountains of Rome” (1916), “Pines of Rome” (1924), and “Roman Festivals” (1928) – and his time-tripping sets of Renaissance lute recreations, the “Ancient Airs and Dances” (composed in 1917, 1923 & 1932).

In 1929, when conductor Serge Koussevitzky suggested Respighi orchestrate some of Rachmaninoff’s keyboard pieces, Rachmaninoff responded enthusiastically. He supplied Respighi with hidden programs behind the works to lend additional insights into their creation. Koussevitzky was impressed with the results, which he unveiled with the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1931. More importantly, Rachmaninoff found the orchestrations to be faithful to the spirit of the originals.

Here is “The Sea and the Seagulls,” from “Cinq Études-Tableaux” by Respighi, after Rachmaninoff.

Also, footage of Arturo Toscanini conducting “Pines of Rome” in 1952, with the NBC Symphony. Toscanini conducted the work’s U.S. premiere, with the New York Philharmonic, in 1926.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vThMQzLbN-Y

Happy birthday, Ottorino Respighi!

PHOTO: Respighi (second from right), horsing around with quattro vitelloni