Andrea Macinanti - Respighi: Complete Organ Works (2017)

Ottorino Respighi organ music production is probably his most unknown and least considered. Yet it deserves a very special attention because, despite its minor size if compared to the entire corpus of Respighi work, it shows a very secure musical writing capacity rarely found in a non practicing organist composer. Admired by Igor Stravinskij, Alfredo Casella, Georg Gershwin, Giacomo Puccini as well as by men of science and culture like Augusto Righi, Enrico Fermi, Albert Einstein and Gabriele d’Annunzio (who called him “pure and firm voice over this confused world of stutterers”), Respighi is partly inspired by Bach (whose admiration is certainly reinforced by his friendship with Ferruccio Busoni) and by Reger German School, without losing sight over the Italian masters’ music heritage. Andrea Macinanti on the extraordinary Serassi-Vegezzi Bossi (1855-1910) organ of the Saluzzo Cathedral, and on the equally mighty Mascioni-Zanin (1951- 2011) organ, is the interpreter of the music by Respighi after also editing the printed edition. The Academia Symphonica di Udine, formed by young musicians led by Pier Angelo Pelucchi, crowns the album by performing the beautiful Suite for strings and organ.