Elsa survived her husband for nearly 60 years, unfailingly championing her husband's works and legacy. A few months after Respighi's death, Elsa wrote to Guastalla: "I live because I can truly still do something for him. And I shall do it, that is certain, until the day I die." However, Italian governments following Mussolini's death in 1945 distanced themselves from nationalistic composers, placing Respighi in a group among those including Malpiero, Ildebrando Pizzetti, and Pietro Mascagni and newspapers protested against honours bestowed upon Elsa. Despite this, in 1961, the twenty-fifth anniversary of Respighi's death, Elsa donated a collection of unpublished and incomplete manuscripts to the Liceo Musicale in Bologna, now the Conservatorio G. B. Martini, where Respighi had studied. In 1969, she helped establish the Fondo Ottorino Respighi, a foundation at the Fondazione Cini in Venice which included a large number of letters and photographs documenting her husband's career. Elsa was also at the forefront of the Respighi centenary celebrations in 1979 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Respighi's birth, though it was opposed by some political factions. She later said that "musical progressives with left-wing political sympathies" tried to discredit Respighi's legacy. The commemoration saw a number of long-neglected works of his performed and recorded for the first time. Elsa died in 1996, one week short of her 102nd birthday.