With airfares to Europe so expensive, ANAM and its performance partner the Auckland Philharmonia have the perfect Trans-Tasman solution in this vividly coloured concert of musical travelogues.
Inspired by the history and landscape of the eternal city, Respighi created three orchestral spectacles that are intensely poetic and alluringly vivid – from the magical soundscape of moonlight outlining the pine trees of the Janiculum, to the tawdry roar that erupts as he depicts the Circus Maximus in the days of the emperor Nero, when martyrs were fed to the lions. These Roman pictures imagine the orchestra as theatre, with Respighi’s wild imagination nurtured by an exceptionally large orchestra – think quadruple wind, celeste, harps, orchestral piano, organ and extra brass. The phrase ‘bigger than Ben-Hur’ is not only accurate, but historically appropriate!
In the early 1920s, around the time Respighi was creating Pines of Rome, the French composer Jacques Ibert was turning the memory of his travels around the Mediterranean into the orchestral magic of Escales (Ports of Call). This suite begins in Palermo’s dazzling sunshine, then stops sinuously at Tunis, before castanets tell you that you’ve arrived at your final destination, Valencia. Ibert imagines each city in rainbow colours, with an ear for orchestral texture worthy of – and inspired by – Debussy and Ravel.
In this glowing showcase for ANAM musicians, they join the Auckland Philharmonia under its Music Director Giordano Bellencampi for one visa-free night only.
Ottorino RESPIGHI Fountains of Rome
Ottorino RESPIGHI Pines of Rome
Jacques IBERT Escales
Ottorino RESPIGHI Roman Festivals
Giordano Bellincampi music director
Auckland Philharmonia
ANAM Musicians
Presented by Auckland Philharmonia in collaboration with ANAM