I am so fed up by the Roman Trilogy. They're amazing pieces of concert hall theater to be experienced once every ten years and then forgotten. They're pieces of musical bombast that celebrate the lethal brutality of Roman history with a literal eye to paying tribute to the emerging fascist movement.
Respighi was a master composer, but a minor master. He was not even the greatest Italian composer of his own generation, that's probably Alfredo Casella who did far more to earn his aspirations toward greater metaphysical depth. Respighi's best music was neoclassical, slender, pleasing to the ear and without particular pretensions toward depth. Respighi truly loved and celebrated the long and deep history of Italian music, to which he pays tribute again and again with a loving awe, searching Italian history long and wide for influences having nothing to do with opera.
The Concerto Gregoriano, his violin concerto that incorporates Gregorian Chant, is one of the most beautiful of all violin concerti. It's almost Vaughan Williams. Though it obviously has more Italian flash and color, it inhabits the same modal spiritus of when Medieval met Renaissance, and updated it for the crisis of the modern era when people without god were searching far and wide for a spiritual quiet that material modern life was incapable of providing.
This is just one in the deep treasure trove of actual Respighi masterpieces which are far removed from the ear decimating world of the Roman Pines and Festivals. This is the true Respighi, and oh how beautiful this music is.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bB5KRHTPTjA
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