Respighi - Tanto bella - Maria Letizia Tedeschi ( soprano ) - Alessandro Marchetti ( piano )

Описание: Enjoy this sweet art song by Ottorino Respighi (1879-1936), Italian violinist, composer, and musicologist who became one of the leading Italian composers in the early 20th century.
Respighi's art song production takes place in a controversial moment of the history of Italy during the first thirty years of the twentieth century: in those years this musical form, so popular especially in Germany, in Italy is suffocated by Operas spreading.

Songs represented for Respighi "a sort of composers intimate journal". Elsa Olivieri Sangiacomo (1894-1996), the composer's wife and biographer, writes: "He who knows Respighi's songs can say he knows very much of him, since they represent the world where he seeks shelter in order to confide the secrets of his heart which he must keep hidden in the course of everyday lite, where his soul can sing freely. An escape, one might say, that permits him the expression of a state of mind, a feeling, a sensation, in only a few pages of music, for a short time, it keeps him away from the difficult tasks of full scores, where he passionately searches for his own musical path".

No poet's name appears on the manuscript of "Tanto bella" (1897), nor could one establish a private relationship between the musician and a poet, so we cannot yet attribute this poem to any poet.

The Italian (original) text:

A la tua culla vennero le fate
E t'acceser d'incanto le pupille:
Ti guardaron gli astri e di faville
Cosparsero le ciocche inanellate.
Ninfe, sirene, in un'allegra danza
T'appreser la voce armoniosa:
A la guancia diede il color la rosa,
A l'alito, ogni fior la sua fragranza!
O tutta rilucente! O profumata!

English translation:

The fairies came round your cradle
And lightened your eyes with their charms;
The stars looked at you and with sparkles
Bedecked your curly hair.
Nymphs, sirens, in their marry dance
Taught you their harmonious singing;
The rose gave your cheek her colour.
All flowers gave your breath their fragrance!
O so bright! O so fragrant!