With Ravel and Richard Strauss, Ottorino Respighi was the third great master of orchestral writing during the early 20th century. Working as a violinist in St Petersburg he learned orchestration from Rimsky-Korsakov, and although he wrote operas and songs it is for his orchestral works he is now remembered.

By far the best known of these (thanks to their promotion by Arturo Toscanini) is the Roman Trilogy: three sets of impressionistic tone poems. The trilogy comprises Roman Festivals (1916), Fountains of Rome (1924) and Pines of Rome (1928).