The July 2025 issue of Gramophone Magazine features an exploration of Ottorino Respighi’s Belkis, Queen of Sheba in the “For the Record” column:

“One of Respighi’s most ambitious stage works, it was composed to a scenario by Claudio Guastalla for an enormous orchestra including a huge percussion section, offstage brass, chorus, vocal soloists and a narrator who tells the legendary story in verse. …

“Eiji Oue restored the correct ordering in his splended Minnesota Orchestra account — a sonic spectacular for Reference Recordings — that also restores the brief use of an offstage tenor (Chad Shelton) singing a wordless line in the finale (it’s taken by an offstage trumpet in most other recordings.)…

“Eiji Oue’s Minnesota Orchestra account is not only scrupulously correct but also tremendously exciting, recorded in truly spectacular sound that fully captures the extraordinary range of Respighi’s palette.”

—Mark Pullinger