Respighi: Preludio, Corale e Fuga, Burlesca, Rossiniana etc, BBC Philharmonic/Noseda

Ottorino Respighi was notoriously obsessed with other composers' works, and well over half the music on this disc consists of adaptations or orchestrations. In Rossiniana (1926), Respighi pays homage to one of his great heroes with dazzling, if dark-hued paraphrases of four of his piano pieces, which pointedly remind us of Rossini's influence on Verdi, Berlioz and Liszt by echoing their orchestral writing in turn. The Five Études Tableaux (1930) are versions of Rachmaninov, undertaken with the latter's consent, and demanding as much virtuosity from the orchestra as the originals require of the pianist. The Burlesca (1906) and the Preludio, Corale e Fuga (1901) are early compositions, overtly influenced by the French impressionists and Dvorak respectively. Both are somewhat slight, though they reveal that Respighi's astonishing orchestral mastery was established very early in his career. Gianandrea Noseda conducts all four works with a devil-may-care brilliance, while the BBC Philharmonic's playing is staggering.