Elsa e Ottorino: i Respighi a Palazzo Chigi Saracini – fra riscoperta del passato e invenzione del futuro

Elia Andrea Corazza, Siena, Chigiana Journal, chigiana100, Micat in Vertice

ABSTRACT: Ottorino ed Elsa Respighi trovarono nel Conte Chigi Saracini un lungimirante mecenate, un competente musicista e un amico appassionato. Con l’Accademia Chigiana il Conte creò un punto d’incontro internazionale tra musicisti, artisti, intellettuali: un crocevia tra epoche storiche, dove si scopriva il passato per inventare il futuro. Grazie ai contatti con il Conte Chigi, Sebastiano A. Luciani, Arrigo Serato, Olga Rudge, Bianca Chigi, Luisa Bàccara, qui indagati, Respighi compose nuove musiche (Lauda per la natività del Signore e la Suite della tabacchiera, 1930) e orchestrò musiche precedenti, oggi riscoperte (E se un giorno tornasse, Respighi, 1930; Vivaldi, Sonata in Re maggiore rv10; Bach, Corale Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland). Custode dei manoscritti di Respighi durante la Seconda guerra mondiale, il Conte ricevette in dono da Elsa numerosi manoscritti del marito, tra cui alcuni autografi della Campana sommersa, ora conservati nella Biblioteca dell’Accademia Chigiana.


[ENGLISH] Ottorino and Elsa Respighi at the Accademia Chigiana: discovering the past to conceive the future.
For Ottorino and Elsa Respighi, the Count Chigi Saracini has been a visionary patron, an experienced musician, and a devoted friend. With the Accademia Chigiana, the Count created a meeting point for musicians, artists, intellectuals: an intersection of historical eras, where the past was discovered in order to conceive the future. Hither I investigated Respighi’s contacts with the Count Chigi, Sebastiano A. Luciani, Arrigo Serato, Olga Rudge, Bianca Chigi, Luisa Bàccara, which lead to the composition of new music (Lauda per la natività del Signore and Suite della tabacchiera, 1930) and the orchestration of pieces of the past, now rediscovered (E se un giorno tornasse, Respighi, 1930; Vivaldi, Sonata in Re maggiore rv10; Bach, Corale Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland). Custodian of Respighi’s scores during World War II, Count Chigi received as a gift from Elsa several manuscripts of Ottorino, including some autographs of La campana sommersa, now hosted at the library of the Accademia Chigiana.

Qui potete ascoltare e vedere la registrazione live della relazione “Elsa e Ottorino: i Respighi a Palazzo Chigi Saracini – fra riscoperta del passato e invenzione del futuro”

Qui l’intervento musicale di Emy Bernecoli al violino, accompagnata da Elia Andrea Corazza al pianoforte, in Vivaldi, Sonata RV10, Largo.

Dietro le quinte, per l’esecuzione del Largo della sonata RV10 in Re maggiore di Vivaldi. Emy Bernecoli violino, Elia Andrea Corazza, pianoforte

Diaghilev’s ‘Time Traveling’ Italian Scores

“Diaghilev’s ‘Time Travelling’ Italian Scores”

13 November 2015, American Musicological Society, Annual Meeting, Louisville, KY

 

During the First World War, Serge Diaghilev scoured numerous European music libraries in search of materials with which to renew the repertoire of the Ballets Russes. He envisioned a new form of ballet in which there were both dancers and singers. Diaghilev fell in love with the classical beauty of Italian Eighteenth-century operas, and noticed that both Cimarosa and Paisiello had spent several years in St. Petersburg as maestri di cappella at the court of the tsarina Catherine the Great. In addition to scores by Pergolesi, Gallo, and others, Diaghilev selected many compositions by Cimarosa and Paisiello annotating them with cuts, interpolations, etc., and marking some themes he recognized as Russian. Finally he gave the materials to composers he trusted to arrange the music. The outcome of Diaghilev’s efforts led to the production of Pergolesi (et al.)-Stravinsky Pulcinella (1920), Cimarosa-Respighi, Le Astuzie femminili (1920), and Paisiello-Respighi La Serva padrona (unperformed).

 

Based on the recent discovery of the lost orchestration that Ottorino Respighi made of Paisiello’s La Serva padrona (March 1920), my paper analyzes the creative process shared by the composer and the impresario which led to the creation of this opera-ballet. I then contextualize this work in relation to the others produced by Ballets Russes in 1920, an emblematic season which inaugurated a new repertory of modernist music for ballet based on pre-romantic models, now regarded as the turning point in musical modernism’s rediscovery of the past.

Dr. Elia Andrea Corazza

Read more about this research on Academia.edu