Ottorino Respighi: a Bolognese and European musician remembered by a memorial tablet on the front of his native home.ic in Bologna, musicians in Bologna.
A memorial tablet uncovered on the front of Bolognese composer Ottorino Respighi’s native home at Via Guido Reni 8  on 4 March; among the others, the Bologna Town Councillor for Culture Marina Deserti, the County Councillor for Culture Marco Macciantelli, the Teatro Comunale Director Luigi Ferrari and the Artistic Councillor of the Accademia Filarmonica Luigi Verdi, coordinating the event, were present  together with Respighi’s nieces Elsa and Gloria Pizzoli.
This event was realized within “Bologna 2000 European capital of culture” and came after a study seminar at Rotonda Gluck at the Teatro Comunale of Bologna. The meeting was introduced by the Teatro Comunale Superintendent Luigi Ferrari and coordinated by Luigi Verdi and included, among its participants, musicologists Alberto Cantù and Potito Pedarra, and Ottorino Respighi’s niece Luisa Putti.

Ottorino Respighi began his studies of violin and counterpoint  at the Liceo Musicale of his town when he was very young. Then he got his diploma in Composition under the guide of Giuseppe Martucci. After his early work RE ENZO, he met a great success with the opera Semirama, staged on its first prémière at the Teatro Comunale of Bologna in 1910. In the same year he was appointed a member of the Accademia Filarmonica of Bologna. He would always remain closely linked to his hometown, even  after he had moved to Rome to teach Composition at the S.Cecilia Conservatoire in 1913. The Civico Museo Bibliografico Musicale of Bologna holds a archive containing a wide number of manuscripts of some of Respighi’s early works, the sketches of I Pini di Roma,  relics,  objects belonging to the composer and the death-mask . The Accademia Filmonica, in turn, holds the piano where Respighi composed Le Fontane and I Pini di Roma, which nieces Elsa and Gloria Pizzoli gave to the Accademia as a gift in 1956. Today Ottorino Respighi ‘s body rests in a tomb at the Certosa of Bologna, next to Giosuè Carducci and Giorgio Morandi.

Laura di Cera

Extract from “Alla Ribalta”, May 2000..