Saturday 2 July 2011

Rare I buy something completely unplayable. I bought a Naxos CD of music by Respighi thinking it was a violin disc with a hitherto unknown violinist. But the violin concerto “by” Respighi turns out to be arranged, completed and edited by one Salvatore di Vittorio, who also conducts an orchestra. The non-violin concerto part of the CD (most of it) is of pastiche music similarly assembled and conducted by the said di Vittorio. The music is sub- 18th/19th century fake and sounds like the worst excesses of music from the despised Hollywood cauldron. What possessed me to order the CD, I cannot think. At least it was cheap. The disc goes straight into the "morgue" section of my CD shelves.

4 comments:

Lee said...

The Devil?

Santa Maria said...

Wow. This is completely false. Please read the liner notes and research the music on recordings properly before making such assumptions.

All of the notes for the "non-violin concerto part of the CD" in fact belong to Ottorino Respighi, and were provided to Di Vittorio and the orchestra by the Respighi family and archive curators.

Sorry to be the first to inform you of this, but a good part of Respighi's early works are a-la-Baroque. This means that ALL of the notes of the Aria and the Suite are by Respighi. (Di Vittorio only edited these two works for their first printed editions. He also revised the Aria without changing notes, so that it could be playable not only by string orchestra but string quintet.)

Rossiniana has already been recorded by other orchestras in the past, so there's no need to defend it here.

As for the Violin Concerto: This is in fact Respighi's First Violin Concerto (notes and orchestration) left unfinished in 1903. For the third movement, more than half of the movement is by Respighi (left in piano reduction with violin part composed). Di Vittorio only finished the orchestration and then completed the finale of the third movement alone.

To reiterate, all of this is explained in the liner notes. If you don't believe these facts, then visit some of the Respighi archives, beginning with the Bologna one.

It would be appreciated if you would make corrections to your posting based on these facts. It would be regrettable to have other music scholars (who are already quite familiar with the above facts) read your inaccurate claims, including the note that Respighi's music is "sub 18th/19th century fake....".

Thank you.

Harry Collier said...

Read with interest. But, to my pretty experienced and elderly ears, the music on this CD is still pretty trite!

Harry Collier said...

Actually, I read the notes before I listened to the CD. Yes, pretty well every note is by Respighi. Does not say much for Ottorino's powers or originality.