An agreeable collection‚ and further proof that Respighi was writing fine music long before Fontane di Roma arrived in 1916: all these pieces were written long before then. Proof‚ too‚ that his varied musical experiences as a young man (training in Italy‚ Russia and Germany; publicly performing as violinist‚ violist and pianist) had given him a wider expressive range than he is generally given credit for. The Six Pieces for violin and piano‚ from his early twenties‚ are fairly characteristic of this. They are all charmingly tuneful‚ and four of them could be classified as salon music‚ but the strikingly bolder and darker third (‘Leggenda’) and the sixth (a neo­Bachian ‘Aria’) already suggest areas that he would explore later. The Piano Quintet from the same period is obviously Brahmsian in inspiration but already very accomplished‚ for example in the way that ‘subsidiary’ piano figuration in the first movement soon takes on a life of its own‚ alongside the broadly lyrical main ideas‚ one of which eventually takes on a distinctly Italian cast. The second movement‚ in effect an introduction to the third‚ has an especially sonorous cantabile theme‚ which its successor takes up in several variants. This is the form in which the work was first heard (Respighi himself as first violinist) in 1902. The fourth movement‚ added later‚ is alas not included here. The Quartet of seven years later is much more Italian‚ though with hints of Mendelssohn and of Russia in the scherzo. It is predominantly lyrical‚ but there is real variety to Respighi’s lyricism: closely twining motivic counterpoint in the first movement‚ for example‚ but a striking juxtaposition of long‚ melancholy line with abrupt chordal ostinato in the second. In that movement the contrast is better pointed by the Venice Quartet’s faster tempo and more restrained emotion (on the Dynamic label); otherwise I found these performances most enjoyable‚ and the recordings are excellent. But I would like to hear the Quintet’s finale one day.