Pines of Rome

Each movement depicts a setting in the city with pine trees, specifically those in the Villa Borghese gardens, near a catacomb, on the Janiculum Hill, and along the Appian Way.

Having relocated from his hometown of Bologna 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".

[5] It is a majestic dirge, conjuring up the picture of a solitary chapel in the deserted Campagna; 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.

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 final movement portrays pine trees along the Appian Way (Latin and Italian: Via Appia) in the misty dawn, as a triumphant legion advances along the road in the brilliance of the newly-rising sun.

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.

Respighi, who had arrived in the United States to embark on a concert tour in December 1925, conducted the work with the Philadelphia Orchestra a day after Toscanini's American premiere.

In 1935, Piero Coppola and the Paris Conservatory Orchestra recorded the music for EMI, released by in the UK by the His Master's Voice, and in the US by RCA Victor on 78 rpm discs.