The Fountains of Rome

The Valle Giulia Fountain at Dawn -

The Triton Fountain in the Morning -

The Trevi Fountain at Midday -

The Villa Medici Fountain at Sunset

Of Respighi’s three Roman tone poems – Fontane di Roma, Pini di roma and Feste romane – the first, inspired by the musical associations of four of the many fountains of the city, is the freshest and perhaps the most attractive if not the most popular. Written in 1916, it is innocent of the imperialist attitude that developed in Rome after Mussolini seized power there in 1922. Although Respighi himself was by no means a Fascist, the new political atmosphere is just beginning to be perceptible in the imposing Pini di Roma of 1923 and is unmistakably present in the positively grandiose Feste Romane of 1928.

Fontane di Roma is fresh also in the sense that, while it was far from the cutting edge of musical development in its day, it was something new for Respighi. The other two Roman tone poems are bigger and more spectacular versions of the same sort of thing. Different composers impressed him at different times – there is more Stravinsky, for instance, in Pini di Roma than in Fontane di Roma – but the major and consistent influences are Rimsky-Korsakov, with whom he had studied at one time, and Richard Strauss, whose example combined with his own extraordinary ear for instrumental colour to produce in these three works some of the most brilliant of all orchestral scores.

Respighi described the expressive intentions of Fontane di Roma in a note in the score: In this symphonic poem the composer has endeavoured to give expression to sentiments and visions suggested to him by four of Rome's fountains contemplated at the hour in which their character is most in harmony with the surrounding landscape or in which their beauty appears most impressive to the observer. So, alongside the variety in atmosphere derived from the character and the setting of each of the fountains, there is a progressive structural background in a time sequence running from dawn to morning and from midday to sunset. The four movements are played without a break.

The first part of the poem, inspired by the fountain of Valle Giulia, depicts a pastoral landscape: droves of cattle pass and disappear in fresh damp mists of a Roman dawn. In Respighi’s day the Valle Giulia was, as he described it, “a pastoral landscape” where cattle would drink at the fountain. His music is inspired in this case not so much by the fountain itself, with its two elegantly sculpted dolphins, as by its setting. It is an idyllic episode echoing with modal folk-like melody suggestive of herdsmen calling to each other on their pipes – for the most part on woodwind, over a gentle rippling in the strings, although at one point a solo cello joins the oboe against a background of brightly coloured drops of sound in celesta and woodwind harmonies.

A sudden loud and insistent blast of horns above the whole orchestra introduces the second part, “The Triton Fountain.” It is like a joyous call, summoning troops of naiads and tritons, who come running up, pursuing each other and mingling in a frenzied dance between the jets of water. Bernini’s fountain in the Piazza Barberini features a triton sitting on a scallop shell, supported by the tails of four dolphins, and blowing vigorously into a conch shell. The conch is heard immediately on the four horns resounding through splashing water in the dazzling light of the morning. The main part of the movement is a gradually more animated scherzo that reaches a peak of excitement just before a briefly receding ending.

Next there appears a solemn theme borne on the undulations of the orchestra. It is the Trevi Fountain at midday. The solemn theme, passing from woodwind to brass instruments, assumes a triumphal character. Trumpets peal: across the radiant surface of the water there passes Neptune's chariot drawn by sea-horses, and followed by a train of sirens and tritons. The procession then vanishes while faint trumpet blasts resound in the distance. The Trevi, designed by Nicolà Salvi and situated near the junction of the Corso and Via del Tritone, is the most famous of all the fountains of Rome. Respighi’s music reflects the massivity of the monument in the splendour of the midday sun and the god-like dignity of the central Neptune figure as his chariot passes through cascades of sound as heavy and as exhilarating as those in the storm episode of Strauss’s Alpine Symphony, which was clearly not unknown to him. It is based on one, nobly rising theme that achieves a broad climax and gradually dies away.

The fourth part, “The Villa Medici Fountain,” is announced by a sad theme which rises above a subdued warbling. It is the nostalgic hour of sunset. The air is full of the sound of tolling bells, birds twittering, leaves rustling. Then all dies peacefully into the silence of the night. Set in the garden of the Villa Medici at the end of the day, the last movement is the most subtly constructed and most sensitively coloured of the four. It begins and ends with the dreamily decorative melody that makes its first entry on flute and cor anglais but also includes a delicately scored episode for a high solo violin and an affectionate passage of bird song on woodwind. The splashing of the fountain, sustained throughout on harps and celesta, gives way in the end to a distantly echoing bell.

Gerald Larner ©2007