Vetrate di chiesa (Church Windows)

La Fuga in Egitto (The Flight into Egypt)

San Michele Arcangelo (St Michael Archangel)

Il Mattutino di Santa Chiara (The Matins of St Clare)

San Gregorio Magno (St Gregory the Great)

Listening to Vetrate di chiesa with no previous knowledge of the work, one would surely never suspect that three of the four movements originated as piano pieces and that none of them was actually inspired by a church window. The general impression is of an ecclesiastical interior suffused by light filtered through stained glass – an effect created by extensive use of church modes and orchestration as colourful as only one of the most resourceful of 20th-century masters of the art could make it. The fact is, however, that the first three movements are arrangements of Respighi’s Three Preludes on Gregorian Melodies for piano.

One of the very few Respighi works conceived for keyboard, the Three Preludes were written soon after the composer’s marriage to Elsa Sangiacomo, a musician who had made a special study of Gregorian chant and who had drawn his attention to the melodic and harmonic potential enshrined in the ancient church modes. The effect was both immediate and lasting, affecting just about everything he wrote from then on.

Although the Three Preludes are, in effect, keyboard studies, Respighi could see that they had potential for development on a larger scale. The problem was not in orchestrating them but in finding a new title. His first idea was Portali di tempio (Temple Portals) but his friend and librettist, Claudio Guastella, came up with the definitive Vetrate di chiesa. The next problem was to think of scenes which might conceivably be illustrated in stained-glass church windows and which could also be projected without incongruity onto the three piano pieces. The Phrygian mode and the 5/4 metre used in the first piece, for example, suggest an exotic setting and its steady progress some kind of journey. Hence Guastella’s title recalling the Holy Family’s flight into Egypt.

The tumultuous second piano piece suggested a quite different kind of picture – “a clash of weapons, a battle in the skies,” Guastella thought. The warlike colouring of the orchestral version – the heroic brass, an atmospheric offstage trumpet call, the shattering tam-tam stroke at the end – brought to mind a picture from Revelations, St Michael struggling with the demon and casting him    out of Heaven.

The most prominent feature of the third piano piece is a bell-like ostinato on one note that tolls with scarcely a pause from beginning to end. “That little silver bell,” said Guastella, “made me think of nuns in holy orders” – which is how the piece acquired a title alluding to an episode in the Little Flowers of St Francis where the ailing St Clare miraculously attends Matins. Beginning with the ostinato on the strings and the devout Gregorian melody on woodwind, the orchestral version retains the chastity of the original but varies the colouring by passing the basic material from one section to another, introducing real bells towards the end.

The fourth movement, San Gregorio Magno, was conceived from the start as an orchestral piece with the specific function of forming the climax of the present work. Given the title San Gregorio Magno – after the 6th-century Pope Gregory I, from whom Gregorian chant takes its name – it is based on the Gloria from the Missa de Angelis, a theme strong enough in outline to bear the massive orchestral weight applied to it here. It is first heard on muted horns after a poetically mysterious introduction and from then on it dominates the construction, bursting out in a short but thrilling organ solo at the very centre, passing through an episode of bitonal harmonies, and achieving an extraordinary splendour in the concluding bars.

Gerald Larner © 2009

La Fuga in Egitto (The Flight into Egypt)

San Michele Arcangelo (St Michael Archangel)

Il Mattutino di Santa Chiara (The Matins of St Clare)

San Gregorio Magno (St Gregory the Great)

Listening to Respighi’s Vetrate di chiesa with no previous knowledge of the work, one would surely never suspect that three of the four movements originated as piano pieces and that none of them was actually inspired by a church window. The general impression is of an ecclesiastical interior suffused by light filtered through stained glass – an effect created by extensive use of church modes and orchestration as colourful as only one of the most resourceful of 20th-century masters of the art could make it. The fact is, however, that La Fuga in Egitto, San Michele Arcangelo and Il Mattutino di Santa Chiara    are, in spite of their evocative titles, arrangements of the modestly designated Tre preludi sopra melodie gregoriane (Three Preludes on Gregorian Melodies) for piano.

One of the very few Respighi works conceived for keyboard, the Tre preludi were written soon after the composer’s marriage to Elsa Sangiacomo, a musician who had made a special study of Gregorian chant and who had drawn his attention to the melodic and harmonic potential enshrined in the ancient church modes. The effect was both immediate and lasting, affecting just about everything he wrote from then on. The major difference in style between two of Respighi’s most popular scores Fontane di Roma (Fountains of Rome) and Pini di Roma (Pines of Rome) is attributable partly to the fact that the former was completed three years before his marriage to Gregorian chant in 1919 and the latter five years after it.

Although the Tre preludi are, in effect, keyboard studies, Respighi – who, ever since his studies with Rimsky-Korsakov in St Petersburg, was essentially a composer for the orchestra – could see that they had potential for development on a larger scale. The problem was not in orchestrating them, which must have been a sheer delight, but in finding a new title. His first idea was Portali di tempio (Temple Portals) but his friend and librettist, Claudio Guastella, came up with the definitive Vetrate di chiesa. The next problem was to think of scenes which might conceivably be illustrated in stained-glass church windows and which could also be projected without incongruity onto the three piano pieces. The Phrygian mode and the 5/4 metre used in the first piece suggest an exotic setting and its steady progress some kind of journey. Hence Guastella’s title The Flight into Egypt and his commentary (printed in the score): “The little caravan proceeded through the desert in the starry night, carrying the Treasure of the world.”

The tumultuous second piano piece, with the opening theme carried in stentorian left-hand octaves, suggested a quite different kind of picture – “a clash of weapons, a battle in the skies” Guastella thought. “Michael and his Angels fought with the dragon and his angels,” says the commentary quoting the Revelation of St John, “but these did not prevail, and there was no more place for them in Heaven.” The military aspect is much emphasised in the orchestral version, above all by the heroic use of brass instruments, the atmospheric off-stage trumpet two thirds of the way through, and the shattering tam-tam stroke as the dragon is cast out at the end.

The most prominent feature of the third piano piece is a bell-like ostinato on one note that (echoing Le Gibet in Ravel’s Gaspard de la Nuit) tolls with scarcely a pause from beginning to end. “That little silver bell,” said Guastella, “made me think of nuns in holy orders flocking like swallows to a bird-call.” After much thought, he and Respighi found that it corresponded neatly with an episode in the Little Flowers of St Francis describing how the ailing St Clare, founder of the Franciscan Order of Nuns, was “miraculously born by the angels from her sick-bed to the Church of St Francis, in order to be present at the Holy Service of Matins.” Beginning with the ostinato on the strings and the devout Gregorian melody on woodwind, the orchestral version retains the chastity of the original but varies the colouring by passing the basic material from one section to another, introducing real bells towards the end.

The fourth movement, San Gregorio Magno, was conceived from the start as an orchestral piece with the specific function of forming the climax of the present work. Given the title San Gregorio Magno – after the 6th-century Pope Gregory I, from whom Gregorian chant takes its name – it is based on the Gloria from the Missa de Angelis, a theme strong enough in outline to bear the massive orchestral weight applied to it here. It is first heard on muted horns after a poetically mysterious introduction and from then on it dominates the construction, bursting out in a thrilling organ solo at the very centre, passing through an episode of bitonal harmonies, and achieving an extraordinary splendour in the concluding bars. “Ecce Pontifex Maximus!” says the commentary in the score. “Bless the Lord… Sing the Hymn to God. Alleluia!”

Gerald Larner © 2009