Program

Ottorino Respighi, Fontane di Roma

I. La fontana di Valle Giulia all'alba

Ii. La fontana del Tritone al mattino

III. La fontana di Trevi al meriggio

IV. La fontana di Villa Medici al tramonto

Ernest Chausson, Poème de l’amour et de la mer

I. La Fleur des eaux. Calme

Interlude

II. La Mort de l'amour. Vif et joyeux

Guy Ropartz, Quatre poèmes d'après l'Intermezzo d'Henri Heine

I. Tendrement enlacés, ma chère bien-aimée

II. Pourquoi vois-je pâlir la rose parfumée ?

III. Ceux qui, parmi les morts d'amour

IV. Depuis que nul rayon de tes yeux bien-aimés

Ottorino Respighi, Pini di Roma

I. I pini della Villa Borghese

II. Pini presso una catacomba

III. Pini del Gianicolo

IV. I pini della Via Appia

Roberto González-Monjas conducts Respighi, Chausson, and Ropartz — With Stéphane Degout

Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse

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Cast

Stéphane Degout — Baritone

Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse

Roberto González-Monjas — Conductor

Program notes

Delight in an evening of sonic poetry with Roberto González-Monjas and the Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse. To begin, take a dawn-to-dusk tour of four exquisite Roman fountains in Respighi’s Fontane de Roma, including a majestic morning at the Fontana di Tritone al Mattino and a brass-fanfare-filled afternoon at the Trevi Fountain! Internationally acclaimed baritone and French art song expert Stéphane Degout then joins the orchestra for Ernest Chausson’s song cycle, Poème de l’amour et de la mer, which evokes the ebb and flow of the sea — and of fickle human emotion — with lush orchestration and poignant reflections on love and nature. After more French mélodies in the form of Guy Ropartz’s hauntingly beautiful setting of four Romantic poems by Heinrich Heine, the ONCT closes out with another of Respighi’s grandiose tone poems, Pini di Roma. Travel further back in time with each movement, from modern metropolitan Rome through the Roman Republic of the early Christian era, and soak in four sun-drenched orchestral portraits of the landscape that made the initially reluctant Bolognese composer fall in love with the Città Eterna.