Italy's leading orchestral composer had scored a big hit in 1919 with his score to the Leonid Massine ballet La Boutique Fantasque, which comprised orchestrations of Rossini piano music from Les Reins ("mere nothings") the collection of about 180 pieces that Rossini wrote during his long retirement. (Sometimes these are called "Sins of my Old Age" because that is how the composer described them.)

Respighi revisited this source of musical delights a few years later when he created an orchestral suite he called Rossiniana. Complete in 1925, this time Respighi treated the original material more freely, being unbound by the limitations of a ballet libretto. It is a very colorful score (typical of Respighi) in which Rossini's music seems to be absorbed into the more modern style of Respighi. The four movements are: " Capri e Taormina (Barcarola e Siciliana)"; "Lamento"; "Intermezzo"; and "Tarantella 'Puro sangue'."

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