Respighi: 6 Pieces for Piano (Scherbakov)

Resphigi is famed primarily as a master orchestrator, but it seems that the same vivid awareness of timbral colour which served him so well in the Roman Trilogy, Ancient Airs and Dances, and The Birds led him to write some remarkably effective piano music. The 6 pieces for piano, written relatively early in Respighi’s career, show him deftly deploying a wide range of pianistic textures to magical effect. Scherbakov delivers a wonderful performance – perfect dynamic control, crystalline melodic lines, and some very intelligent handling of multi-layered textures (notice how he slyly modifies the big rolled chords in the nocturne, for instance). 00:00 – Valse Caressante. Lilting and quintessentially salon-esque. 03:26 – Canone. A canon at the octave. Rhythmically playful, as the trailing voice is two beats behind the leading. Starts off rather inward and reticent, before attaining a kind of luminous trepidation when it moves into Eb min. Then a swift move into D, triumphant, before returning into G min