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Review: Respighi: Orchestral works (Orchestra Philharmonique Royal de Liége/Neschling)

In 1918 Diaghilev and his Ballets Russes were doing their best to cheer up a shell-shocked public so, rather than continue his assault on bourgeois sensibilities that had brought forth Le Sacre du Printemps, he commissioned Respighi to orchestrate a selection of Rossini’s piano pieces. La Boutique Fantasque premiered in London in 1919 and was an instant hit. Rossini’s bouncy tunes in Respighi’s Technicolor orchestration made the suite a regular feature of Classical Pops concerts of previous generations. Neschling and his superb Belgian orchestra offer perform the complete ballet with gusto as an orchestral showpiece laying bare usually blurred details of orchestration aided by an upfront and brightly lit recording. While prudently less high voltage than the old rip-roaring account of the suite by Arthur Fiedler on RCA Living Stereo (a guilty pleasure) it is an exciting romp in demonstration sound but lacks a certain balletic grace and flexibility. Impressioni Brasiliane was the product of a visit to Rio and is very much in Respighi’s pictorial style with snatches of Brazilian tunes. Opening with an evocative night piece and closing with a hip-swaying danza, its bizarre middle movement portrays a visit to a biomedical institute that held 80,000 snakes –…

May 8, 2014