Hey, when you write tone poems that rattle the rafters, you deserve to enjoy a little down time.
Ottorino Respighi may be taking the day off, but we’ll celebrate the anniversary of his birth, with music that’s so over-the-top that Cecile B. DeMille would have blushed.
The ballet “Belkis, Queen of Sheba,” a quasi-Biblical spectacle set at the court of King Solomon, was given its first performance at La Scala in 1932. The finale featured over a thousand performers, which likely accounts for the work’s subsequent neglect. Grandiose even by Respighi standards, the concluding orgiastic dance whipped the opening night audience into a frenzy.
We’ll also observe the birthdays today of composers David Diamond and Paul Chihara, pianist Leonard Pennario, and conductor David Zinman, and remember composer and conductor Oliver Knussen, who died yesterday at the age of 66.
The music will be pretty spectacular, between 4 and 7 p.m. EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.
Respighi (second from right) hits the beach with quattro amici
