Pini di Roma (Pines of Rome)

Respighi's Pines of Rome (1924), the second of his celebrated Roman trilogy, conjures four scenes of eternal Rome through some of the most opulent orchestral writing of the 20th century. Each movement depicts a different grove of pines at a different hour: children playing at the Villa Borghese, catacombs lit by flickering torchlight, the Janiculum by moonlight, and finally the Appian Way at dawn as a phantom Roman army marches. The third movement famously incorporates a phonograph recording of a real nightingale — one of the earliest uses of recorded sound in concert music — while the finale's great brass chorale builds to a shattering climax of extraordinary power. Respighi's orchestration draws on Rimsky-Korsakov, Richard Strauss, and Impressionism while remaining wholly personal in its cinematic vividness.