Fontane di Roma (NCPE. Nieweg, Miller)

Ottorino Respighi (1879–1936) ranks among the most significant Italian composers of the early twentieth century. As a student of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov in St. Petersburg, he acquired a masterful command of orchestration that would shape his entire output. He had a particular affinity for vivid tone-painting, with which he captured the atmosphere of his native city of Rome in a wholly distinctive way.

“Fontane di Roma” (P. 106), which received its premiere in Rome in 1917, opens Respighi's celebrated triptych of Roman tone poems. The symphonic poem portrays, across four movements, four fountains of the Eternal City at different times of day: the Fontana di Valle Giulia at dawn, the Triton Fountain in lively play, the Trevi Fountain at the radiant midday hour, and the fountain of the Villa Medici in the stillness of sunset.

In doing so, Respighi unfolds an extraordinary palette of orchestral color. Delicate string lines, shimmering woodwind passages, and surging brass chorales alternate with one another, conjuring atmospheric sound-pictures of great sensuality. The work is a masterpiece of impressionistically tinged program music and remains to this day one of the most beloved pieces in the symphonic repertoire.