There pieces aren’t nearly so unfamiliar, on disc at least, as they used to be. Metamorphoseon is a theme and variations on an attractive, modal tune. It was commissioned by the Boston Symphony for its 5oth anniversary celebrations, part of an amazing crop of 20th century masterpieces that included Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms, Honegger’s First Symphony, Hindemith’s Concert Music for Strings and Brass, Hanson’s Romantic Symphony, Prokofiev’s Fourth Symphony, and Roussel’s Third Symphony. You might call it Respighi’s answer to Elgar’s Enigma Variations in the sense that it’s a rich, colorful, thoroughly symphonic score that hangs together quite well. It deserves to be better known still.
The Ballad of the Gnomes must be Respighi’s least familiar tone poem; it’s only been recorded a couple of times previously. Forget the grotesque story–Mrs. Gnome decapitates Mr. Gnome–and simply enjoy the typically glitzy orchestration and good tunes. We are still waiting for a complete recording of Belkis, Queen of Sheba (the score is now available from Editions Höflich in Munich), and until that comes along this standard, four-movement suite will do nicely.
All of the performances here are expert, but conductor John Neschling deserves particular credit for keeping things movement purposefully forward in the first two long, and mostly slowish, movements of the Belkis suite. The same work’s vulgar (let’s not kid ourselves) concluding Danza orgiastica also sounds more musical than usual–less like a back-alley gang bang–but with no loss of energy. The Liège orchestra plays with great bravura, and BIS’s SACD sonics, typically, are just terrific. In short, a very worthy entry in this ongoing series.
