Respighi was a Roman only by adoption; he was born in Bologna, then travelled to Russia where he played in the St Petersburg Opera orchestra and studied composition with Rimsky-Korsakov, then to Berlin where he studied with Max Bruch. He then played violin and viola professionally for some years before in 1913 being appointed professor of composition at the Accademia S. Cecilia in Rome. Suddenly he remarked to his wife Elsa that he wondered why no one “had ever thought of making the fountains of Rome sing, for, after all, they are the very voice of the city”. Fontane was written in 1916, followed by Pini di Roma in 1924 and Feste Romane in 1928, but Fontane remains by far the most winning, and has justifiably become his most popular work. At 26 it reveals all too transparently Respighi's assimilation of the idiom of Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier.

sources

A  Autograph score (1916), Stichvorlage for E, in the Archivio Storico Ricordi, Milan

PX  Manuscript orchestral parts, in the Archivio Storico Ricordi, Milan

E  First edition score, published by Ricordi in 1918 (Pl. No. 117463). Page 1 has bars 1–3. This score was reprinted identically in miniature, only with Pl. No. P.R.438

F  Reprint of full score, more commonly found than E, dated 1947 (Pl. No. P.R.206), differently laid out; page 1 has bars 1–7

P  Orchestral parts; the validity of the errata below is confused both by a reprint (of Vl 1, at least) and by the online (IMSLP) parts which appear to have been doctored, perhaps according to an errata list, and generally corrected