Guess the Composer

When I was a teenager at boarding school in England, the Deputy Head of Music used to play a composer-recognition game with us music students called Guess the Composer. More often than not, of course, we couldn’t, but that was the point of the exercise, which forced us to think about the characteristic harmony, counterpoint, melodic writing and orchestration of different composers. One of the most memorable of these games introduced us to the music of Ottorino Respighi in the form of Roman Festivals, the final part of his spectacular Roman Trilogy which also includes Pines of Rome and Fountains of Rome. I was instantly fascinated by the sonic kaleidoscopic and orchestral power on display and couldn’t imagine how this magic was being made under the hood.

One thing Guess the Composer unfortunately didn’t always provide were the scores to the works in question, many of which were not in the public domain at that time.  In fact, Respighi’s works only very recently became available for purchase following the expiration of his estate’s copyright protection. As such, it would take several decades until I could easily get hold of a score and programme the work with my own orchestra in Charlotte. As luck would have it, my composer friend Adam Walters had just written a Roman-themed overture, The Downfall of Gaius Verres based on the novel Imperium by Thomas Harris which would provide the perfect matching bookend to Roman Festivals. We completed our “Swords and Sandals” thematic through-line with the Bacchanale from Saint Saëns’ Samson and Delilah and added Rachmaninov’s 2nd Piano Concerto to ensure that the audience would turn up.

What was fun in the planning was an absolute blast in practice and the audience absolutely loved it!  Most importantly, I was able to well and truly induct myself into the magic circle of Respighi’s orchestration and certainly no longer need to “guess the composer”!