Pines of Rome (Italian:Pini di Roma),P 141, is atone poem in four movements for orchestra completed in 1924 by the Italian composerOttorino Respighi. It is the second of his three tone poems aboutRome, followingFontane di Roma (1916) and precedingFeste Romane (1928). Each movement depicts a setting in the city withpine trees, specifically those in theVilla Borghese gardens, near acatacomb, on theJaniculum Hill, and along theAppian Way. The premiere was held at theTeatro Augusteo in Rome on 14 December 1924, withBernardino Molinari conducting theAugusteo Orchestra, and the piece was published byCasa Ricordi in 1925.

The piece consists of four movements, for which Respighi wrote programmatic notes describing each scene:^[1][2][3]

Respighi completedI Pini di Roma in the summer of 1924, after he had "conceived, started and restarted" work on the piece in the course of several years. Having relocated from his hometown ofBologna to Rome in 1913, Respighi said that the city's "marvellous fountains" and "umbrella-like pines that appear in every part of the horizon" were two characteristics that "[have] spoken to my imagination above all".^[4] This influence resulted in the first of his three tone poems about Rome, theFontane di Roma (1916), which brought him international fame.

Authors Rehding and Dolan observed that the piece is cyclical in nature in different ways; the Villa Borghese gardens, the Janiculum hill, and the Appian Way pinpoint a counter-clockwise tour around Rome's perimeter, and the four movements progress from day to night, and ending with dawn.^[2] The setting of each movement goes back in time, from children playing in the contemporary city to the era of the catacombs from the early Christian period, before it concludes at the time of theRoman Republic. The piece also represents progressing through time, beginning with children playing and ending with grown men in uniform. All the while, the Janiculum hill is dedicated toJanus, the god of beginnings, endings, and transitions, and has two faces, one of which looks forward and the other backward in time.^[2]

The first movement portrays children playing by the pine trees in theVilla Borghese gardens, dancing the Italian equivalent of the nursery rhyme "Ring a Ring o' Roses" and "mimicking marching soldiers and battles; twittering and shrieking like swallows".^[5] TheVilla Borghese, a villa located within the grounds, is a monument to theBorghese family, who dominated the city in the early seventeenth century. Respighi's wifeElsa recalled a moment in late 1920, when Respighi asked her to sing the melodies of songs that she sang while playing in the gardens as a child as he transcribed them, and found he had incorporated the tunes in the first movement.^[6]

In the second movement, the children suddenly disappear and shadows of pine trees that overhang the entrance of aRoman catacomb dominate.^[5] It is a majestic dirge, conjuring up the picture of a solitary chapel in the desertedCampagna; open land, with a few pine trees silhouetted against the sky. A hymn is heard (specifically the Kyrie ad libitum 1,Clemens Rector; and the Sanctus from Mass IX,Cum jubilo), the sound rising and sinking again into some sort of catacomb, the cavern in which the dead are immured. An offstage trumpet plays the Sanctus hymn. Lower orchestral instruments, plus the organ pedal at 16′ and 32′ pitch, suggest the subterranean nature of the catacombs, while the trombones and horns represent priests chanting.

The third is anocturne set on theJaniculum Hill and a full moon shining on the pines that grow on it. Respighi called for the clarinet solo at the beginning to be played"come in sogno" ("As if in a dream").^[4][7]

The movement is known for the sound of anightingale that Respighi requested to be played on aphonograph during its ending, which was considered innovative for its time and the first such instance in music. In the original score, Respighi calls for a specific gramophone record to be played–"Il canto dell'Usignolo" ("Song of a Nightingale, No. 2") from disc No. R. 6105, the Italian pressing of the disc released across Europe by the Gramophone Record label between 1911 and 1913.^[8] The original pressing was released in Germany in 1910, and was recorded by Karl Reich and Franz Hampe. It is the first ever commercial recording of a live bird.^[8] Respighi also called for the disc to be played on aBrunswick Panatrope record player. There are incorrect claims that Respighi recorded the nightingale himself, or that the nightingale was recorded in the yard of the McKim Building of theAmerican Academy in Rome, also situated on Janiculum hill.^[9]

Respighi recalls the past glories of the Roman Empire in a representation of dawn on the great military road leading into Rome. The final movement portrays pine trees along theAppian Way (Latin andItalian: Via Appia) in the misty dawn, as a triumphantlegion advances along the road in the brilliance of the newly-rising sun. Respighi wanted the ground to tremble under the footsteps of his army and he instructs the organ to play bottom B♭ on the 8′, 16′ and 32′ organ pedals. The score calls for sixbuccine – ancient circular trumpets that are usually represented by modernflugelhorns, and which are sometimes played offstage. Trumpets peal and the consular army rises intriumph to theCapitoline Hill. One day prior to the final rehearsal, Respighi revealed to Elsa that the crescendo of "I Pini della Via Appia" made him feel "'an I-don’t-know-what' in the pit of his stomach", and the first time that a work he had imagined turned out how he wanted it.^[4]

The score ofPines of Rome calls for a large orchestra consisting of the following:

Woodwinds

3flutes (third doublingpiccolo)

3oboes

cor anglais

2clarinets in B♭ and A

bass clarinet

2bassoons

contrabassoon

Brass

4horns in F and E

3trumpets in B♭

offstage trumpet in C

2tenor trombones

bass trombone

tuba

6buccine in B♭ (marked "o flicorno": two sopranos, two tenors, two basses; usually played onflugelhorns andsaxhorns)

Percussion

timpani

bass drum

snare drum

cymbals

2 small cymbals

tam-tam

triangle

ratchet

tambourine

gramophone

glockenspiel

Keyboards

organ

piano

celesta

Strings

harp

1stviolins

2ndviolins

violas

cellos

double basses

Pines of the Villa Borghese

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The Pines Near a Catacomb

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The Pines of the Janiculum

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The Pines of the Appian Way

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Pines of Rome premiered December 14, 1924 at the Teatro Augusteo in Rome, a venue built above the mausoleum ofAugustus, the first Roman emperor.^[4]Bernardino Molinari conducted the Orchestra dell'Augusteo to a positive reception.^[10] Elsa remembered the final measures of the piece were "drowned by frenetic applause" from the audience, and a second performance was arranged on 28 December to a sold-out venue.^[4] The American premiere took place on January 14 1926, duringArturo Toscanini's first concert as conductor of theNew York Philharmonic. Toscanini also conducted the piece at his final performance with the orchestra in 1945. Respighi, who had arrived in the United States to embark on a concert tour in December 1925, conducted the work with thePhiladelphia Orchestra a day after Toscanini's American premiere.^[11][12]

Pines of Rome is easily the most recorded of all Respighi's works, and is often released as part of his trilogy of Roman-inspired works. As of 2018, more than 100 recordings of the piece are available on physical media.^[13]

Lorenzo Molajoli andEttore Panizza both made recordings with theMilan Symphony Orchestra; Molajoli's recording was released byColumbia Records and Panizza's recording was released byOdeon andDecca Records. In 1935,Piero Coppola and theParis Conservatory Orchestra recorded the music for EMI, released by in the UK by theHis Master's Voice, and in the US byRCA Victor on 78 rpm discs.^[14] Toscanini recorded the music with theNBC Symphony Orchestra inCarnegie Hall in 1953. The music was recorded instereophonic sound byFritz Reiner and theChicago Symphony Orchestra inOrchestra Hall in 1959–60, also for RCA alongsideClaude Debussy'sLa Mer.^[15][16]

• The piece was used inFireworks (1947), an avant-garde film directed byKenneth Anger.^[17]
• Movements I, II and IV were used throughout ofA Movie (1958) byBruce Conner.^[18] The whole composition was used as a soundtrack forMorgan Fisher'sAnother Movie (2018), a reinterpretation of Conner's film in which the screen is black, except for the third movement, which depicts the original nocturne, a full moon behind the pine trees, in a single shot.^[19]
• The opening of the work was used at the beginning of the 1983 song "City of Love" released on the album90125 by the rock bandYes.^[20]
• An edited version was used to accompany flying, frolickinghumpback whales in theDisney filmFantasia 2000. The second movement is omitted, along with the nightingale's song in the third and the English horn solo in the fourth.^[21][22]
• Fragments of the second and fourth movements were used in the soundtrack ofThe Tragedy of Man (1983-2011) byMarcell Jankovics.

• Brody, Martin (2014).Music and Musical Composition at the American Academy in Rome. Boydell & Brewer.ISBN 978-1-580-46245-7.
• Ferguson, Donald N. (1968).Masterworks of the Orchestral Repertoire: A Guide for Listeners. University of Minnesota Press.ISBN 978-0-816-65762-9.
• Borowski,George P. Upton Felix; Upton, George Putnam (2005).The Standard Opera and Concert Guide Part Two. Kessinger Publishing.ISBN 978-1-41918-139-9.
• Frank, Mortimer H. (2002).Arturo Toscanini: The NBC Years. Amadeus Press.ISBN 978-1-57467-069-1.
• Rehding, Alexander; Dolan, Emily (2021).The Oxford Handbook of Timbre. Oxford University Press.ISBN 978-0-190-63722-4.

• Performance by theNew World Symphony conducted byStéphane Denève, onYouTube
• Pini di Roma: Scores at theInternational Music Score Library Project
• National Symphony Notes
• Arkansas Symphony Notes
• San Diego Symphony Notes

• Symphonic poems by Ottorino Respighi
• Orchestral suites
• 1924 compositions
• Music for orchestra and organ
• Concert band pieces
• Music about Rome

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Articles containing Italian-language text
• Articles with hAudio microformats
• Works with IMSLP links
• Articles with International Music Score Library Project links