This disc is part of a series devoted to Respighi's complete songs for voice and piano, and in turn part of a larger one covering neglected art song repertoire from between the two world wars. In many passages it's delightful, and it whets the appetite for other releases in both series. Identified as Respighi's orchestral music may be with Italian scenes, the songs here draw mostly on other ethnic traditions. The Quattro liriche su parole di poeti armeni of 1921, tracks 1 through 4, draw on Armenian influences in both text ...
Read More
This disc is part of a series devoted to Respighi's complete songs for voice and piano, and in turn part of a larger one covering neglected art song repertoire from between the two world wars. In many passages it's delightful, and it whets the appetite for other releases in both series. Identified as Respighi's orchestral music may be with Italian scenes, the songs here draw mostly on other ethnic traditions. The Quattro liriche su parole di poeti armeni of 1921, tracks 1 through 4, draw on Armenian influences in both text and music; the melodies are flavored with the modes of central Asian religious chant. Several songs are in French, and one, La fine (track 11), sets a work by India's Rabindranath Tagore in English translation. Most unexpected of all are a group of Quattro arie scozzezi -- Four Scottish Airs (to texts by James Hogg, Thomas d'Urfey, and Robert Burns, all in the original Scots dialect) -- of 1924, sung with a reasonable lowlands Scots inflection by South African soprano Andrea Catzel....
Read Less
