Overture Magazine - 2018-19 Season BSO_Overture_JanFeb_19 | Page 26

RESPGHI PINES OF ROME
has now been born and has just received
its world premiere on January 16 th with
the London Philharmonic with Currie has
soloist and Marin Alsop conducting. At
these concerts, it makes its American debut.
Grime writes music that is vivid,
dramatically compelling and
simultaneously highly original and often
beautiful in the imaginative way it uses
instruments, both those of a soloist and
the forces of a large orchestra. “I do very
much want to connect with the audience,”
she says. “I’m not just writing music for
myself. I want the audience to be engaged
and transported for the duration of the
piece.” Her music draws listeners in and
progressively rivets their attention.
Though born in England, Grime was
raised and trained in Scotland before
earning two degrees with first-class honors
at London’s Royal College of Music.
An oboist herself, she first attracted
wide attention in 2003 with her Oboe
Concerto, which won a British Composer
Award; she was the soloist at its world
premiere. In 2008, she won a Leonard
Bernstein Fellowship to the Tanglewood
Music Center, where she studied with
John Harbison and Shulamit Ran. From
2011 to 2015, she served as Associate
Composer to the revered Hallé Orchestra
of Manchester. She was also the Composer-
in-Residence for the past two seasons at
the legendary Wigmore Hall in London;
her first commission for Wigmore was a
Piano Concerto for her husband and fellow
composer, Huw Watkins.
As a young man, he lived for a time in
St. Petersburg, Russia, where he became
principal violist in the opera orchestra and
a student of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov.
Because Respighi was one of those rare
composers who drew as much inspiration
from his eyes as from his ears, he found
Rimsky’s imaginative use of instrumental
color ideal for his own creative expression.
Also an accomplished conductor,
Respighi visited Brazil in 1927 to lead
concerts of his music in Rio de Janeiro.
Thrilled by the exotic scenes he saw and
the Brazilian music he heard, he created
Brazilian Impressions on his return home
and then brought it back to perform in
Brazil in June 1928.
The first movement, “Tropical night,”
glistens with the high pinging of a harp;
this languid, sultry movement is all
impressionistic atmosphere. Snatches of
Brazilian folk tunes float in and out of
the texture.
The second movement, “Butantan,”
commemorates a visit made to a snake
farm run by the Butantan Reptile
Institute, where thousands of snakes were
bred for their medicinal venom. Respighi
brilliantly captures their slithering in
low and high clarinets; tambourines and
drums portray the rattle snakes. Near the
end, the composer, a lover of Gregorian
chant, adds the menacing, down-and-up
“Dies Irae” chant, creeping quietly in the
strings. Relief from this reptilian horror
is provided by the graceful “Song and
dance” with its swaying rhythms and light,
sparkling scoring.
Instrumentation: Two flutes including piccolo,
two oboes including English horn, two clarinets
including E-flat clarinet, two bassoons including
contrabasoon, two horns, two trumpets,
timpani, harp, celesta and strings.

BRAZILIAN IMPRESSIONS
THE PINES OF ROME
Ottorino Respighi
Born in Bologna, Italy, July 9, 1879;
died in Rome, Italy, April 18, 1936
Ottorino Respighi was a very well-
traveled man who collected influences
from cultures far from his native Italy.
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but allowed modern flugelhorns to take
their place. And most unusual of all was
his inclusion of a gramophone to play the
nightingale’s silvery song at the close of
movement three.
Respighi described the four movements
as follows:
The Pines of the Villa Borghese:
“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. Suddenly
the scene changes, and…
Pine Trees Near a Catacomb:
“We see the shades of the pine trees fring-
ing the entrance to a catacomb. From
the depth rises the sound of mournful
psalm-singing, floating through the air
like a solemn hymn, and gradually and
mysteriously dispersing.”
The Pines of the Janiculum:
“A quiver [piano] runs through the air: the
pine trees of the Janiculum stand distinctly
outlined in the clear light of a full moon.
A nightingale is singing.”
The Pine Trees of the Appian Way:
“Misty dawn on the Appian Way: solitary
pine trees guarding the magic landscape;
the muffled, ceaseless rhythms 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 toward the Sacred Way,
mounting in triumph to the Capitol.”
Brazilian Impressions—instrumentation:
After moving to Rome in 1913 to assume
a professorship at the Conservatorio di Santa
Cecilia, Respighi embarked on a love affair
with his adopted city. He created three love
letters to her: The Fountains of Rome, The
Pines of Rome and Roman Festivals. Of these,
The Pines of Rome was the most popular and
Respighi’s own favorite.
Here the composer makes spectacular
use of a very large orchestra. The giant
percussion section includes piano, organ,
harp and many bell-like instruments.
For the last movement — an epic vision
of ancient Rome —Respighi called for
six bucelli, the old Roman war trumpets,
Three flutes including piccolo, two oboes,
English horn, two clarinets, bass clarinet, two
bassoons, four horns, three trumpets, two
trombones, tuba, timpani percussion, harp,
celesta, piano and strings.
Pines of Rome—instrumentation:
Three flutes including piccolo, two oboes,
English horn, two clarinets, bass clarinet, two
bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, four
trumpets, three trombones, tuba, offstage brass,
timpani, percussion, harp, celesta, organ, piano
and strings.
Notes by Janet E. Bedell, © 2019