Respighi: The Fountains Of Rome/The Pines Of Rome/Feste Romane

Ottorino Respighi (Composer), Eugene Goossens (Conductor), Malcolm Sargent (Conductor), London Symphony Orchestra (Orchestra) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Orchestra: London Symphony Orchestra
• Conductor: Eugene Goossens, Malcolm Sargent
• Composer: Ottorino Respighi
• Audio CD (February 28, 1995)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Everest Records
• ASIN: B0000023GQ
• Also Available in: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #313,862 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. The Fountains Of Rome: The Fountain Of Valle Giulia At Dawn

2. The Fountains Of Rome: The Triton Fountain

3. The Fountains Of Rome: The Fountain Of Trevi At Midday

4. The Fountains Of Rome: The Fountain Of The Villa Medici At Sunset

5. The Pines Of Rome: The Pines Of The Villa Borghese

6. The Pines Near A Catacomb

7. The Pines Of Rome: The Pines Of The Janiculum

8. The Pines Of Rome: The Pines Of The Appian Way

9. Feste romane: Circuses

10. Feste romane: The Jubilee

11. Feste romane: The October Festival

12. Feste romane: The Epiphany

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Early stereo recordings revisited, March 24, 2003

By 

MARTIN SELBREDE (GEORGETOWN, TX United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Respighi: The Fountains Of Rome/The Pines Of Rome/Feste Romane (Audio CD)

The Goosens version of Feste Romane was an early release on Everest Records (#3004) using 35mm wide, sprocketed recording tape putatively designed to capture the huge dynamic range of the tone poem. The transfer to CD isn't first class, but it does satisfactorily capture the energy of the performance. Like a recording of Eugene Ormandy's, this one omits the pipe organ called for in the score. This is (ironically) made up for in spades in Malcolm Sargent's rendering of the other two tone poems, Pines & Fountains, where the organ is arguably more prominent than on any other recording of these works. On the opening movement of Feste Romane (Circenses), Goosens emphasizes pain in the discords (substituting p-ff crescendos for sforzando attacks), his tempi are recklessly fast, and the percussionists were unbridled (esp. the gong player). Percussion takes center stage in the final movement (La Befana), where the xylophone and rattle drive the rhythms forward (virtually the opposite approach to Zubin Mehta's for this sequence). Unrestrained, unrefined, pounding Respighi for those who can appreciate Roman Festivals "with the gloves taken off." Goosens handles the more delicate sections well, bringing out contrasts and emotional depth. Sargent's reading of Pines and Fountains is, for the most part, valuable for revealing what Respighi had written for the pipe organ for these works - that instrument fairly thunders at the climax of Pines. The limitations of early stereophonic recording haven't been transcended in the remastering process, however -- some tinniness and compressed stereo image obtains.