Respighi’s sizeable orchestral output has only latterly come into its own on disc and this release from Brilliant is announced as the first volume of a complete traversal. It gives a pertinent overview, moreover, of the twin aspects that inform the composer’s thinking throughout his maturity: namely Italy’s scenic and musical past.

Disc 1 features the ‘Roman Triptych’ that has long conveyed Respighi to a wider audience. Working with the Orchestra Sinfonica di Roma (familiar from its survey of unfamiliar Italian music on Naxos), Francesco La Vecchia has the measure of Fountains of Rome, not least an unusually leisurely account of the ‘Villa Medici’ finale, whose placing of detail is as deftly achieved as its evocation of atmosphere. If the two later suites are rather less successful, this is because the orchestral response lacks the virtuosity fully to project the music’s finesse and panache; movements such as the ‘Appian Way’ from Pines of Rome and ‘Circuses’ from Roman Festivals seem a little inhibited, while the absence of organ during their climactic passages is an undeniable drawback.

Not least because it focuses on Respighi’s less visceral side, Disc 2 is more satisfying overall. Admittedly the suites (from the turn of the 20th century) find the composer struggling to wrest a personal idiom from an unlikely amalgam of Baroque forms and late-Romantic harmonies, though few would surely find fault with the eloquent ‘Sarabanda’ from the Suite for strings or sensuous ‘Pastorale’ from the Suite for strings and organ. La Vecchia secures eloquently wrought readings of both works and gives a fine account of The Birds, Respighi’s most piquant instance of ‘early music’ (here Baroque harpsichord pieces) given a stylish and characterful makeover, above all the soulfulness of ‘The Dove’ that is one of the composer’s most affecting realisations.

Presentation is ‘no frills’, as usual from Brilliant, yet there is little to fault in the spacious sound or extensive booklet-notes. Those interested in the ‘Roman Triptych’ have various options to choose from but those drawn to the other works or who are interested in a Respighi orchestral intégrale should certainly give this set a try.