Pizzeti was among the leading Italian composers (principally Casella, Malipiero and Respighi) of the ‘generation born around the 1880s’ who, in reacting against the melodic indulgences of their predecessors, Puccini and Mascagni, sought to modernize the Italian opera tradition and to re-establish non-operatic Italian music. On this first ever compact disc devoted exclusively to a selection of Pizzetti’s orchestral music, the intensely expressive yet self-contained Prelude to Act I of the opera, Fedra, is followed by the ripely romantic Canti della stagione alta and the colourful and dramatic Sinfonia del fuoco, written for the 1914 silent film, Cabiria.