Christmas

Ottorino Respighi’s compositional legacy rests on two main pillars. One is his brilliant and evocative orchestral tone poems, particularly the three depictions of Rome, past and present. The other is his reimagining of music from earlier eras, of which the best known are the suites of orchestrations of Renaissance pieces called Ancient Airs and Dances. The fact that neither of these are opera is rare for an Italian: As our 2019 program (for a per...