Ottorino Respighi (1879-1936)
Ballet "il Conte Orlando"
Villanelle "Peasant Girl"
Gaillarde "Charming Girl"
Italienne "Italian girl"
Passacaille
Sicilienne
Laura soave
Bergamasque
Arie di Corte
Danza Rustica
Aria "Campanae Parisienses"
Passo Mezzo e Mascherada
Suite "Gli Uccelli" (version pour orgue de R. Bellati)

Rodolfo Bellatti, orgue

C’est au brillant organiste italien Rodolfo Bellatti (1973) que nous devons ces remarquables méta-transcriptions. En effet, dans un style très différent des recherches historiques et philologiques de ses maîtres Luigi Torchi (1858-1920) ou Oscar Chilesotti (1848-1916), Ottorino Respighi (1879-1936) choisit de transcrire pour orchestre, à sa manière très libérale, trois suites d’airs anciens pour luth (1917, 1923, 1931) ainsi que cinq pièces aux thèmes aviaires initialement composées pour clavecin ou luth, « Les Oiseaux » (1927). Ces transcriptions font usage de toutes les possibilités d’une orchestration riche et colorée grâce à un instrumentarium très diversifié, harpe, clavecin, hautbois et l’ensemble des cordes. Ce sont ces transcriptions que Rodolfo Bellatti a elles-mêmes adaptées et en quelque sorte retranscrites avec goût et tact pour le bel instrument qu’est l’orgue pétillant, doux et fruité de la Cathédrale Sainte Marie de l’Assomption… d’Asti ! On n’aurait en effet rêvé trouver plus spumante que cet orgue Serassi de 1844, complété en 1865 et 1891 (jeu de cornemuse). Grâce aux registres savamment choisis et aux timbres d’un magnifique instrument ainsi qu’à l’art consommé d’un interprète empreint d’humour et d’esprit, cela nous donne un Balletto detto « Il Conte Orlando » aux résonances majestueuses, des Villannella et Gagliarda pleines de sucs, des Danses rustiques de succulentes saveurs, une Poule aussi pétulante que truculente, et un Coucou de Pasquini s’enivrant lui-même de l’écho de ses chants. Un enregistrement original, parfaitement réalisé et qui mérite d’être connu et reconnu pour son apport indirect à la littérature organistique. (Jacques-Philippe Saint-Gerand)

Though not strictly born in the 1880s (1879), Respighi belonged to a group of composers known as the generazione dell’ottanta (The 80s Generation), who strived to assert, as they saw it, a renewed musical expression of authentically Italian musical culture. It was a conservative stance in terms of both musical approach and nationalism, but it resulted in Respighi and colleagues recovering unjustly neglected treasures from their Italian heritage. Respighi’s first international success, an arrangement of Monteverdi’s Lamento d’Arianna, may be seen as the natural forerunner to the four suites of arrangements and transcriptions on this album. While the intent may have been conservative, Respighi’s approach to what we now call ‘early music’ was notably liberal by our standards, marked as much by nostalgia and irony as erudition. Orchestration is much too weak a term to do justice to the process of subtle recomposition to which Respighi subjected his chosen originals. Suite No.1 of the Ancient Airs & Dances consists of four pieces, yet Rodolfo Bellatti has moved its concluding Passo mezzo e Mascherada to the very end of the three suites in order to bring an authentically lively and upbeat close to the sequence as a whole. Many critics have singled out the Third Suite as the finest, perhaps because of its melancholy and reflective character. Between composing the Second and Third of these Suites, Respighi produced another small masterpiece of affectionate neoclassicism with his Gli Uccelli (The Birds). Five avian-themed pieces of harpsichord and lute music supply Respighi with his originals, to which he gives a stylized gloss. Rodolfo Bellatti has made these Respighi transcriptions while bearing in mind their suitability for organs of different ages, styles and sizes. He has aimed to respect both the colours and form of Respighi’s suites as well as the nature of the original pieces with their older tuning systems and affective idiom. He has also chosen to confine himself to the range of pitches afforded by organs of the 16th and 17th centuries.