Respighi: Tre Liriche in Bloomington, MN

Conductor
Salvatore Di Vittorio
and his
Chamber Orchestra of New York
specialize in the music of
Ottorino Respighi
and have released several albums devoted to the composer's lesser-known works. This one contains several worthwhile rediscoveries. Most impressive are the "Tre Liriche" ("Three Lyric Poems"), which
Respighi
wrote for mezzo-soprano and piano and then decided to orchestrate. The project was apparently left unfinished; the notes do not make it exactly clear what happened, but the music here is offered in a completion by
Di Vittorio
in its world premiere.
Luciano Pavarotti
used to sing two of the three songs, and they are gorgeous. Two of the songs are to texts by
Ada Negri
, whose poetry was once described by
Benedetto Croce
as "somewhat melancholy, idyllic-elegiac." This quality fits the voice of mezzo-soprano
Alessandra Visentin
to a T, and these three songs are worth the price of admission. There is also an orchestral work,
Berceuse
;
's adaptation of the
Lamento d'Arianna
of
Monteverdi
(which points to an interesting early Baroque layer in the composer's work in general), and two longer voice-and-orchestra pieces to texts by
Percy Bysshe Shelley
, translated into Italian.
Visentin
is less successful in these; her voice doesn't have much variety of texture, and she doesn't develop overarching structures, but the small
is able throughout, and as for the "Tre Liriche," by all means, hear these. ~ James Manheim