OTTORINO RESPIGHI His Art Songs by Potito Pedarra The subject of Ottorino Respighis (Bologna, 1879 - Rome, 1936) vocal chamber music, "less ambitious yet more genuine and varied" (S. Martinotti) than the operatic one, has not yet been studied systematically, not even by the scholars and musicologists who have published many top-level essays on his music. Respighis art song production takes place in a "controversial moment of the history of Italy during the first thirty years of our century": in those years this musical form , so popular especially in Germany, in Italy is "suffocated by Operas spreading" (Elio Battaglia). It is true that the German Lied and the Italian song are two musical forms of completely different type.
While in Austria Hugo Wolf (1860 - 1903) devoted himself almost exclusively to Lied composing, in Italy the canzone was still considered as a secondary chamber music form, just an entertainment, mere occasional music in a few words. Here, on the "crisis, nearly total, of the Italian Lied", Ottorino Respighis experience was grafted, the musician being one of the most prolific composers of his generation. Until then this form was considered an almost exclusive prerogative of Francesco Paolo Tosti (1846-1916), who, "in spite of his not so far-sighted intentions", still seems to be "the most genuine song-writer in Italy, for, at least from a historical point of view, he does not cover himself with any intellectual cloth, as his contemporaries do" (Elio Battaglia). The lirica (song) represents for Respighi "a sort of a composers intimate journal" (A. Cant). Elsa Olivieri Sangiacomo (1894 - 1996), the composers wife and biographer, writes: One who knows Respighis songs can say he knows very much of him, since they represent the world where he seeks shelter and in everyday life entrusts his hearts hidden secrets, when he lets his soul sing freely. An escape, as one could say nowadays, that allows him the expression of a state of mind, a feeling, a sensation, in only a few pages of music; for a short time, it keeps him away from the difficult tasks of full scores, where he passionately looks for his own musical path. It is so interesting to see how, on the one hand, in order to reach his first thorough symphonic piece, Fontane di Roma (1916), it took him fifteen years (years of the hardest work, research, study in all various fields of culture and in all different spiritual tendencies); on the other hand, in his songs (see Nebbie, 1906), he immediately achieved a perfect form and an absolutely personal language .
The art song represents the first intimate core of his creative work, or "the Ariadnes thread to follow and understand the varied and large study on the European late Romantic and early Twentieth century culture that Respighi did during his slow yet precise artistic training"(S. Martinotti). A kind of reconnaissance he also made in the literary field, where "one could clearly note the disquieting and ardent influence of either the late German Lied (certainly known during Respighis peregrinations throughout Europe) or the new French chanson.". It is demonstrated by the choice of texts of the songs included in this first CD: from an occasional encounter with the poetry of Ada Negri (1870-1945) to the great European classical tradition represented by Percy Bysshe Shelly (1792-1822), Victor Hugo (1802 - 1885) and Sully Prudhomme (1839 - 1907, from the decadent crepuscular Carlo Zangarini (1874-1943), Enrico Panzacchi (1840 - 1904), Arturo Graf (1848 - 1913), to the French symbolism in Jean Moras (1856 - 1910), from the popular traditional song to the great masters of the Italian "Decadence", Gabriele DAnnunzio (1863 - 1938) e Antonio Fogazzaro (1842 - 1911). One may misunderstand the presence of so many contemporary Italian poets as a kind of provincial attitude in Respighi as a song-writer. Yet "the choice of those poems does not necessary require a less challenging task". Respighis art song production confirms what Fedele dAmico demonstrates: the relation between Respighi and the XIX century " not only sounds as a natural continuation, a father to son heritage, but also keep on growing from the first apprentice works until the very end, being able to co-exist with tendencies that would contradict them": the use of ancient modes, for example, but also the art of free transcription, and, above all, "the new orchestral sense, (...) absorbed from the lessons with Rimskij-Korsakov". Lagrime and Storia breve, respectively from 1896 and 1904, were published by Bongiovanni (Bologna) in 1982, with Lultima ebbrezza, Tanto bella, Notturno, Luce, to be found in our first volume . Scherzo, Nevicata and Nebbie (with no doubt Respighis most famous song), Bongiovanni, were probably composed in 1906: the first one for Maria Pedrazzi, while the last two, dedicated to mezzo Rosina Zacchi Pedrazzi, were first performed by herself in Bologna that same year. The two collections Sei Melodie and Sei Liriche (I serie), Bongiovanni, were both born in 1909: Chiarina Fino Savio, the singer who contributed the most in the creation of the composers major vocal works of those years (Aretusa in 1911, the 2nd collection of Sei Liriche in 1912, Il Tramonto in 1914) was their first interpreter in a concert in Bologna at the prestigious ancient hall of the Accademia Filarmonica, on April the 23rd, 1912. Published by Ricordi in 1911, E se un giorno tornasse..., is a dramatic recitativo, in a kind of modern style without measures, again for Fino Savio. The Quattro rispetti toscani, Bongiovanni, 1915, sprang from the occasional encounter with the humour and the "popular" sense of Arturo Birgas verses. Miranda, 1902, is still an unpublished manuscript, as well as Canzone sarda and Le funtanelle (1928 - 1930).