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The Gaggle Music Club: Ottorino Respighi’s "Ancient Airs and Dances"

This week's selection of The Gaggle Music Club is Ottorino Respighi’s "Ancient Airs and Dances." The composition consists of a set of three orchestral suites composed between 1917 and 1932, based on lute pieces from the 16th and 17th centuries.

Ottorino Respighi (1879–1936) was an Italian composer, musicologist, conductor and orchestrator. He studied composition in Bologna and later trained in orchestration under Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov in Russia. The Russian master-orchestrator strongly influenced Respighi's approach to tone color. Respighi went on to become one of the most important figures in Italian music in the early 20th century. A significant part of Respighi’s output was devoted to reviving and reinterpreting early music. He created orchestral versions of lute pieces, Gregorian chant and harpsichord works. Unlike his contemporaries in Italy, he had little time for atonality and serialism.

For "Ancient Airs and Dances," Respighi, a skilled musicologist, drew on transcriptions of Renaissance and early Baroque Italian and French lute music compiled by Oscar Chilesotti. The three suites that comprise Ancient Airs do not form a trilogy in the narrative sense, but are unified by their approach. Respighi transforms early dance and song forms into rich, orchestral textures while preserving the melodic essence of the originals.

Respighi did not simply orchestrate old lute music. He re-harmonized it, enriched its texture and invented transitions and connecting material. It resulted in a kind of neo-Renaissance impressionism—historical melodies are enveloped in modern harmonic colors and a Debussyan orchestral timbre.

The Ancient Airs and Dances proved to be very influential. It led to a revival of early music. At a time when much Renaissance music was known only to specialists, Respighi brought it to concert audiences.

Respighi was a pioneer in the neoclassical movement, although never embraced Stravinsky’s irony or rhythmic asymmetry.

Respighi also had an impact on film composers: His ability to evoke past eras through lush orchestration influenced film music. Composers like Miklós Rózsa, Bernard Herrmann and even John Williams owe some inspiration to his treatment of historical material.

At the time of their premieres, the suites were warmly received—seen as elegant and cultured, yet also emotionally appealing. Critics appreciated Respighi’s ability to balance respect for old forms with imaginative modern scoring. Today, the Ancient Airs and Dances remain among the most-performed of Respighi’s works.

00:44:59
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Monday Night At The Movies

Please choose which one of the following 8 movies you would like to have screened next Monday, Sept. 8.

The theme is "films featuring an abrupt narrative pivot--starting to tell one story then suddenly switching to tell another story."

Please continue to vote after Sept. 8, so that we can determine the runner-up. The runner-up will be screened on Sept. 15.

September 05, 2025

Yugoslavia & The West's Playbook for Global Domination | Dr. George Szamuely

Neutrality Studies

235K subscribers

Sep 5, 2025 Interviews

Dr. George Szamuely reveals how the West's destruction of Yugoslavia in the 1990s became the blueprint for modern interventionism. From the illegal Badinter Commission to NATO's "humanitarian" bombing, Western powers violated international law to break up a sovereign state. This wasn't about human rights—it was about eliminating Russian influence in Europe and establishing total Western dominance. The precedents set in Yugoslavia directly enabled today's conflicts in Ukraine, Gaza, and beyond. Szamuely exposes the hypocrisy of the "rules-based order" and shows how arbitrary legal interpretations serve geopolitical interests, not justice. Dr. Szamueli is a Senior Fellow at the Global Policy Institute, the co-host with Peter Lavel of the podcast “The Gaggle,” and the author of the wonderful book “Bombs for ...

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https://www.unz.com/jfreud/the-only-way-russia-can-win-given-its-inability-to-inspire-its-neighbors-and-name-the-real-problem/

Few paragraphs at the beginning of the article.

Because if Putin is really serious about getting to the core of the issue, he would acknowledge the fact that the Ukraine War has essentially been a Judeo-Russian War. The ‘leadership’ of the West, as currently configured, consists mainly of puppets and pawns whose overlying purpose is to appease the Empire of Judea. Even the US, the so-called Lone Superpower, is run by Jewish hegemonists(whose main identification is with the Empire of Judea) and their hapless goy cucks. The US military is to the Jews what the Sikhs were to the British who once...

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More Leftie Than Thou
"Jacobin" Magazine Celebrates A Strike Against Ol' Blue Eyes

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