Roman Festivals (Respighi)

Having completed the work, Respighi felt that he had incorporated the "maximum of orchestral sonority and colour" from the orchestra and could no longer write such large scale pieces.

[5] Although Roman Festivals is generally considered as less successful than its two predecessors, conductor and Respighi interpreter Yan Pascal Tortelier points to the "really inspired mix of sophisticated orchestration, chromaticism, harmony and powerful driving rhythms" used in the piece, and judges "La Befana" as "exuberant, almost orgiastic" and "much more varied and satisfying musically" than the similarly eruptive final movement of Pines of Rome.

[6] "Circus Games" depicts the ancient contests in which gladiators battled to the death, with the sound of trumpet fanfares.

Trumpets sound again and create a festive clamour of Roman songs and dances, including a barrel organ and a drunken reveler depicted by a solo tenor trombone.

Indeed, the 1949 performance pushed the very limits of the recording equipment of the time as Toscanini insisted the engineers capture all of the dynamics of the music, especially in "Circus Games" and "Epiphany".

The piece was first performed in Italy at the Augusteo in Rome on 17 March 1929, by the Orchestra of the Accademia di Santa Cecilia under Bernardino Molinari.