Imagine that you have found an old, dusty music book with melodies written hundreds of years ago for a lute or harpsichord. They are beautiful, but their sounds seem distant and fragile. Now imagine that a genius artist took these melodies and coloured them with the richest and velvety tones of a modern string orchestra, without disturbing their spirit but only emphasising their eternal beauty. The suite Ancient Arias and Dances by Italian composer Ottorino Respighi is just such a musical ‘time machine’.
Ottorino Respighi (1879-1936) was a true orchestration wizard. While many of his contemporaries were engaged in avant-garde experiments, Respighi often turned to his country’s rich past, drawing inspiration from the music of the Italian Renaissance and Baroque. He did not simply copy the old but created a bridge between eras, allowing us to hear the distant past through the prism of the 20th century.
The works, which form a trilogy, are also of particular interest in terms of form. They seem to combine the features of a four-part sonata-symphonic cycle with a free, rhapsodic poem. All the episodes that make up each part of the trilogy are juxtaposed as contrasts. At times, the music abounds in vivid pictorial details (the colourful bustle of a fair in Part I and a curious touch in Part III, where nightingale singing is used in a mechanical recording). At the same time, they are bound together by a common concept, linked either to the most interesting events in Roman history or to the majestic beauty of the ancient Italian capital.
The cycle Antique Arias and Dances consists of three suites, each based on lute and guitar pieces from the 16th-17th centuries. Suite No. 1 P 109 was written in 1917. It is based on Renaissance lute pieces by Simone Molinaro, Vincenzo Galilei (father of Galileo Galilei), and other anonymous composers. Perhaps the most exquisite and popular is Suite No. 3 (1932), which was written exclusively for a string orchestra. Its sound is devoid of pomposity and loudness; it is intimate, transparent, and incredibly elegant. What do we hear in this suite?
It is a series of short pieces with contrasting moods. The pensive Italiana sounds like a smooth, graceful melody full of light melancholy, like a memory of a court ballet seen through the haze of time. This is followed by the ‘Court Arias’ (Arie di corte), where noble restraint gives way to deep and soulful feelings. Each dance is a small sound watercolour painted with impeccable taste.
The suite culminates in the ‘Passacaglia’. This is an ancient processional dance based on the repetition of the same melody in the bass, over which new musical patterns unfold. In Respighi’s version, it sounds like a majestic but calm reflection that gradually gains strength and depth, reaching a powerful but not ostentatious conclusion.
Respighi’s Ancient Airs and Dances is not merely a collection of beautiful melodies. It is an act of love for one’s culture and a demonstration that true beauty is timeless. This music is the perfect remedy for the hustle and bustle of daily life. It requires no effort, inviting the listener to contemplate and enveloping them in an atmosphere of noble antiquity and peace. It is a quiet but shining treasure of Italian music, proving that sometimes, to move forward, you need to look back with love.
Creatively reinterpreting the achievements of Richard Strauss and Claude Debussy, and drawing heavily on Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (Respighi studied with him for several years), the composer created magnificent examples of programmatic symphonic music, a genre that did not exist in Italy before him.
