London Philharmonic Orchestra: Puccini’s Tosca and Respighi’s The Pines of Rome

Puccini Tosca (excerpts)
Rota Suite, La Strada
Respighi Pines of Rome

Enrique Mazzola conductor
Maria Luigia Borsi Tosca
Thiago Arancam Cavaradossi
Vittorio Vitelli Scarpia
London Philharmonic Orchestra


Even Respighi was moved beyond expectation at the first performance of his imposing orchestral cityscape Pines of Rome, proclaiming to his wife Elsa that he felt ‘something odd in the pit of my stomach’ at the moment the last movement throttles upwards into a pummelling orchestral crescendo. Before Respighi’s spectacular tone poem, Enrique Mazzola conducts more music with Rome at its heart: Italian film maestro Nino Rota’s sparkling music for the ballet (and later film) La Strada, and excerpts from Puccini’s Tosca, arguably his most intense, raw, cruel and compulsive opera.