Ottorino Respighi (1879–1936) had a great love for Italian music of the late Renaissance and Baroque. He was actively involved in editing and transcribing the music of Monteverdi, Vitali and Marcello and in 1917 began work on what was to become the first of three orchestral suites which he called Ancient Airs and Dances. These suites consist of arrangements of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Italian and French lute and baroque guitar music. This recording presents the original lute versions of the works Respighi arranged, in essentially the same order in which they appear in his suites. It does not slavishly follow Respighi’s repeat schemes, his rearrangement of the structure of the original works, or his tempo indications. In the first Italiana, the Passo mezzo bonissimo and Gianoncelli’s Bergamasca, for example, Respighi interrupts each piece, inserts another work, and then returns again to the first. In the Bergamasca, a Tasteggiata (Prelude) from a suite in another key has been inserted, which would have required retuning the archlute. While these insertions are extremely effective in Respighi’s arrangements, they cannot have been so performed on the lute in the seventeenth century. Here, each work is performed in its entirety before moving on to the next piece.
- Wykonawca O'Dette Paul , Covey-Crump Rogers
- Data premiery 2004-01-01
- Nośnik CD