Rome, 24 March 1894 - Rome, 17 March 1996

Italian singer and composer.
She studied in Rome with Sgambati (piano), Remigio Renzi (harmony and counterpoint), and Ottorino Respighi (composition), whom she married in 1919.
A singer with a fine technique and an interpreter of considerable taste, she undertook many concert tours, accompanied at the piano by Respighi, some of whose compositions she first performed.
After an initial period as a composer of mainly songs with piano accompaniment, she abandoned composition almost entirely to devote herself to her husband's career, and, after his death, to preserving his memory by publishing books and organizing conferences, performances, recordings and new editions of the music.
As well as completing unfinished compositions, she also made some transcriptions of his work.
In 1969 she established a Fondo Respighi in Venice, to promote music education in Italy.
Her own output also includes a number of orchestral and vocal-orchestral pieces; a lauda drammatica, Il pianto della Madonna, first performed in Turin in 1939; and two operas, both unperformed: Il dono di Alcesti, with which she won the Concorso Nazionale held by the SIAE (Società Italiana Autori ed Editori) in 1942, and Samuray (1945).

Writings:

Ottorino Respighi: Dati biografici ordinati (Milan, 1954; Eng. trans., 1962)
Cinquant'anni di vita nella musica (dal 1905 al 1955) (Padua, 1975)
with L. Bragaglia: Il teatro musicale di Respighi (Rome, 1978)

Bibliography:

A. Gasco: ‘Una musicista italiana: Elsa Olivieri Sangiacomo’, Musica d'oggi, (1920)
L. Bragaglia: Ardendo vivo: Elsa Respighi, tre vite in una (Rome, 1983)
P. Adkins Chiti: Donne in musica (Rome, 1996)
Grove Music Online: www.oxfordmusiconline.com

Author:

Antonio Trudu

Works:

Fior di neve (fiaba musicale, 3, Verdini), 1918
Il dono di Alcesti (op, 1, C. Guastalla), 1941
Samuray (op, 3, Guastalla), 1945
3 Canzoni spagnole, voice Soprano, orchestra, 1917
4 liriche (O. Khayam), 1 voice, piano 1918–9
Il pianto della Madonna (Jacopone da Todi), voice Soprano, voice Tenor, chorus, orchestra, 1939
3 Canti corali (A. Poliziano), chorus, 1939
Preghiera di Santa Caterina, Mez, chamber orchestra, 1943–8
Serenata di maschere, orchestra, 1918
Suite di danze, orchestra, 1919–20
Intermezzo romantico, viola, flute, harp, orchestra, 1942