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. Of the specifically Italian songs, the most interesting are six settings of poems by Gabriele d'Annunzio. Sample track 15, Sopra un'aria antica (About an Old Song), where Respighi matches the text with a free paraphrase of an aria by seventeenth century Italian composer Marc Antonio Cesti. Respighi, as in his orchestral works in a similar vein, uses Baroque music not with the dry, neo-Classic effect of
Stravinsky but as a sort of pastoral mood-setter.
That song and several others distill Respighi's gigantic orchestral style down to simple gestures in a beautifully effective way. These songs were certainly worth revival, and the trio of singers employed on the album does well with many of them. Soprano Elisabetta Scano, a Baroque specialist, has a voice with an intriguing English-horn quality; she doesn't quite have the hearty cuteness for the French Due lirichi (tracks 5 and 6), but in the Armenian songs she's very evocative. Tenor
Leonardo de Lisi captures the languid, decadent mood of the d'Annunzio poems. Good texts and translations are provided for all selections, including the Scots dialect pieces. This unusual collection is strongly recommended to art song lovers in general, and especially to singers looking for offbeat Italian repertory that will spice up any recital.