This record deserves 8 and 1/2 stars
mainFrom the Lebrecht Album of the Week:
In the summer of 1943, and for reasons still unclear, Milan’s best young composer moved to the undeveloped south of Italy and stayed there for the rest of his life. Nino Rota, at 32, was content to be a teacher in Bari, later director of its Conservatorio. Had he not needed to earn a little extra money on the side in Rome’s dolce vita film industry, he might never have been heard of again.
Rota’s symbiotic partnership with the director Federico Fellini, starting with The White Sheik in 1952, catapulted him to world fame and redefined the art of composing for film. ...
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Don t forget also the Rota Scala album of last year. On the book with the CD there s a very moving photo of a Chailly very very young and the master few months before he left us. Hope there will be a second part.
Don’t forget Riccardo Muti’s fabulous Nino Rota albums from La Scala!
If we think today that something sounds like ‘film music’, it will bear one of two thumbprints – either Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s in Hollywood or Rota’s in Cinecitta.”
Not sure quite what this means, but I do not note the “thumbprint” of Korngold (or Rota) in, say, Morricone, or Tiomkin, or Bernard Hermann…I’m still thinking about John Williams.
“…redefined the art of composing for film.”
Nino Rota played a huge role in causing film scoring to be viewed as something with potential as an art form, rather than just a necessary post-production requirement for sound films.
He was a unique voice who added depth of story to every film he touched.
Not just film music. There is a significant output of “real” music. I discovered Rota, the classical composer, only a couple of years ago and I am still amazed how good he sounds off screen! Try him, if you have not done so already.