Nino Rota
Encyclopedia
Nino Rota was an Italian composer
and academic who is best known for his film score
s, notably for the films of Federico Fellini
and Luchino Visconti
. He also composed the music for two of Franco Zeffirelli
's Shakespeare films, and for the first two films of Francis Ford Coppola
's Godfather
trilogy, receiving for the latter the Academy Award for Best Original Score
in 1974.
During his long career Rota was an extraordinarily prolific composer, especially of music for the cinema. He wrote more than 150 scores for Italian and international productions from the 1930s until his death in 1979—an average of three scores each year over a 46 year period, and in his most productive period from the late 1940s to the mid-1950s he wrote as many as ten scores every year, and sometimes more, with a remarkable thirteen film scores to his credit in 1954. Alongside this great body of film work, he composed ten opera
s, five ballet
s and dozens of other orchestral, choral and chamber works, the best known being his string concerto. He also composed the music for many theatre productions by Visconti, Zeffirelli and Eduardo de Filippo
as well as maintaining a long teaching career at the Liceo Musicale in Bari
, Italy, where he was the director for almost 30 years.
, Rota was a renowned child prodigy—his first oratorio, L'infanzia di San Giovanni Battista, was written at age 11 and performed in Milan and Paris as early as 1923; his three-act lyrical comedy after Hans Christian Andersen
, Il Principe Porcaro, was composed when he was just 13 and published in 1926. He studied at the Milan conservatory there under Giacomo Orefice
and then undertook serious study of composition under Ildebrando Pizzetti
and Alfredo Casella
at the Santa Cecilia Academy in Rome
, graduating in 1930.
Encouraged by Arturo Toscanini
, Rota moved to the United States where he lived from 1930 to 1932. He won a scholarship to the Curtis Institute of Philadelphia
, where he was taught conducting by Fritz Reiner
and had Rosario Scalero
as an instructor in composition. Returning to Milan, he wrote a thesis on the Renaissance
composer Gioseffo Zarlino
. Rota earned a degree in literature from the University of Milan, graduating in 1937, and began a teaching career that led to the directorship of the Liceo Musicale in Bari, a title he held from 1950 until 1978.
During the 1940s, Rota composed scores for more than 32 films, including Renato Castellani
's Zazà (1944). His association with Fellini began with The White Sheik
(1952), followed by I vitelloni
(1953) and La Strada
(1954). They continued to work together for decades, and Fellini recalled:
The relationship between Fellini and Rota was so strong that even at Fellini's funeral Giulietta Masina
, Fellini's wife, asked trumpeter Mauro Maur
to play Rota's Improvviso dell'Angelo in the Basilica di Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri
in Rome.
Rota's score for Fellini's 8½
(1963) is often cited as one of the factors which makes the film cohesive. His score for Fellini's Juliet of the Spirits
(1965) included a collaboration with Eugene Walter
on the song, "Go Milk the Moon" (cut from the final version of the film), and they teamed again for the song "What Is a Youth?", part of Rota's score for Franco Zeffirelli
's Romeo and Juliet
.
The American Film Institute
ranked Rota's score for The Godfather
#5 on their list of the greatest film scores
. His score for War and Peace
was also nominated for the list.
In all, Rota wrote scores to more than 150 films.
in 1979, Rota's music was the subject of Hal Willner
's 1981 tribute album
Amarcord Nino Rota, which featured several at the time relatively unknown but now famous jazz musicians. Gus Van Sant
used some of Rota's music in his 2007 film Paranoid Park
and director Michael Winterbottom
used several Rota selections in the 2005 film Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story
. Danny Elfman
frequently cites Nino Rota as a major influence. Director Mario Monicelli
filmed a documentary Un amico magico: il maestro Nino Rota which featured interviews with Franco Zeffirelli
and Riccardo Muti
(a student under Rota at Bari Conservatory), and was followed by a German documentary Nino Rota - Un maestro della musica. Both explored film and concert sides of the composer.
(The Florentine Straw Hat), an adaptation of the play by Eugène Labiche was presented by the Santa Fe Opera
in 1977. In 2005 his opera Aladino e la lampada magica (Aladdin and the Magical Lamp), with Cosmin Ifrim in the title role, was performed in German translation at the Vienna State Opera
and released on DVD.
Written for a radio production by RAI
in 1950, his short opera, I due timidi
(The Two Timid Ones), was presented by the Santa Fe Opera as part of their pre-season "One-Hour Opera" program in May/June 2008.
recalls his first chance meeting with Rota:
A critic conversing with Nino Rota at the age of eleven just prior to a performance of his oratorio, The Childhood of St. John the Baptist, in 1923:
On his friendship with Igor Stravinsky
:
Nino Rota reflecting on the unhappiness of others:
Federico Fellini
on Nino Rota:
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
and academic who is best known for his film score
Film score
A film score is original music written specifically to accompany a film, forming part of the film's soundtrack, which also usually includes dialogue and sound effects...
s, notably for the films of Federico Fellini
Federico Fellini
Federico Fellini, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI , was an Italian film director and scriptwriter. Known for a distinct style that blends fantasy and baroque images, he is considered one of the most influential and widely revered filmmakers of the 20th century...
and Luchino Visconti
Luchino Visconti
Luchino Visconti di Modrone, Count of Lonate Pozzolo was an Italian theatre, opera and cinema director, as well as a screenwriter. He is best known for his films The Leopard and Death in Venice .-Life:...
. He also composed the music for two of Franco Zeffirelli
Franco Zeffirelli
Franco Zeffirelli KBE is an Italian director and producer of films and television. He is also a director and designer of operas and a former senator for the Italian center-right Forza Italia party....
's Shakespeare films, and for the first two films of Francis Ford Coppola
Francis Ford Coppola
Francis Ford Coppola is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. He is widely acclaimed as one of Hollywood's most innovative and influential film directors...
's Godfather
The Godfather
The Godfather is a 1972 American epic crime film directed by Francis Ford Coppola, based on the 1969 novel by Mario Puzo. With a screenplay by Puzo, Coppola and an uncredited Robert Towne, the film stars Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, Robert Duvall, Sterling Hayden, John Marley, Richard...
trilogy, receiving for the latter the Academy Award for Best Original Score
Academy Award for Best Original Score
The Academy Award for Original Score is presented to the best substantial body of music in the form of dramatic underscoring written specifically for the film by the submitting composer.-Superlatives:...
in 1974.
During his long career Rota was an extraordinarily prolific composer, especially of music for the cinema. He wrote more than 150 scores for Italian and international productions from the 1930s until his death in 1979—an average of three scores each year over a 46 year period, and in his most productive period from the late 1940s to the mid-1950s he wrote as many as ten scores every year, and sometimes more, with a remarkable thirteen film scores to his credit in 1954. Alongside this great body of film work, he composed ten opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
s, five ballet
Ballet
Ballet is a type of performance dance, that originated in the Italian Renaissance courts of the 15th century, and which was further developed in France and Russia as a concert dance form. The early portions preceded the invention of the proscenium stage and were presented in large chambers with...
s and dozens of other orchestral, choral and chamber works, the best known being his string concerto. He also composed the music for many theatre productions by Visconti, Zeffirelli and Eduardo de Filippo
Eduardo De Filippo
Eduardo De Filippo was an Italian actor, playwright, screenwriter, author and poet, best known for his Neapolitan works Filumena Marturano and Napoli Milionaria.-Biography:...
as well as maintaining a long teaching career at the Liceo Musicale in Bari
Bari
Bari is the capital city of the province of Bari and of the Apulia region, on the Adriatic Sea, in Italy. It is the second most important economic centre of mainland Southern Italy after Naples, and is well known as a port and university city, as well as the city of Saint Nicholas...
, Italy, where he was the director for almost 30 years.
Early career
Born Giovanni Rota Rinaldi, into a musical family in MilanMilan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
, Rota was a renowned child prodigy—his first oratorio, L'infanzia di San Giovanni Battista, was written at age 11 and performed in Milan and Paris as early as 1923; his three-act lyrical comedy after Hans Christian Andersen
Hans Christian Andersen
Hans Christian Andersen was a Danish author, fairy tale writer, and poet noted for his children's stories. These include "The Steadfast Tin Soldier," "The Snow Queen," "The Little Mermaid," "Thumbelina," "The Little Match Girl," and "The Ugly Duckling."...
, Il Principe Porcaro, was composed when he was just 13 and published in 1926. He studied at the Milan conservatory there under Giacomo Orefice
Giacomo Orefice
Giacomo Orefice was an Italian composer.He was born in Vicenza. He studied under Busi and Mancinelli at the Liceo Bologna, and later became professor of composition at the Milan Conservatory...
and then undertook serious study of composition under Ildebrando Pizzetti
Ildebrando Pizzetti
Ildebrando Pizzetti was an Italian composer of classical music.- Biography :Pizzetti was born in Parma in 1880. He was part of the "Generation of 1880" along with Ottorino Respighi and Gian Francesco Malipiero. They were among the first Italian composers in some time whose primary contributions...
and Alfredo Casella
Alfredo Casella
Alfredo Casella was an Italian composer, pianist and conductor.- Life and career :Casella was born in Turin; his family included many musicians; his grandfather, a friend of Paganini's, was first cello in the San Carlo Theatre in Lisbon and eventually was soloist in the Royal Chapel in Turin...
at the Santa Cecilia Academy in Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
, graduating in 1930.
Encouraged by Arturo Toscanini
Arturo Toscanini
Arturo Toscanini was an Italian conductor. One of the most acclaimed musicians of the late 19th and 20th century, he was renowned for his intensity, his perfectionism, his ear for orchestral detail and sonority, and his photographic memory...
, Rota moved to the United States where he lived from 1930 to 1932. He won a scholarship to the Curtis Institute of Philadelphia
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Philadelphia County, with which it is coterminous. The city is located in the Northeastern United States along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It is the fifth-most-populous city in the United States,...
, where he was taught conducting by Fritz Reiner
Fritz Reiner
Frederick Martin “Fritz” Reiner was a prominent conductor of opera and symphonic music in the twentieth century.-Biography:...
and had Rosario Scalero
Rosario Scalero
Natale Rosario Scalero was an Italian violinist, music teacher and composer.By the age of six, Scalero was under the tutelage of Pietro Bertazzi, a violinist, musical instrument maker and instructor at the Conservatorio St. Cecilia in Torino. In 1881, Scalero entered the Liceo Musicale di Torino...
as an instructor in composition. Returning to Milan, he wrote a thesis on the Renaissance
Renaissance music
Renaissance music is European music written during the Renaissance. Defining the beginning of the musical era is difficult, given that its defining characteristics were adopted only gradually; musicologists have placed its beginnings from as early as 1300 to as late as the 1470s.Literally meaning...
composer Gioseffo Zarlino
Gioseffo Zarlino
Gioseffo Zarlino was an Italian music theorist and composer of the Renaissance. He was possibly the most famous music theorist between Aristoxenus and Rameau, and made a large contribution to the theory of counterpoint as well as to musical tuning.-Life:Zarlino was born in Chioggia, near Venice...
. Rota earned a degree in literature from the University of Milan, graduating in 1937, and began a teaching career that led to the directorship of the Liceo Musicale in Bari, a title he held from 1950 until 1978.
Film scores
In his entry on Rota in the 1988 edition of The Concise Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Composers and Musicians, music scholar Nicholas Slonimsky described Rota as "brilliant" and stated that his musical style:- "... demonstrates a great facility and even felicity, with occasional daring excursions into dodecaphony. However his most durable compositions are related to his music for the cinema; he composed the sound tracks of a great number of films of the Italian director Federico Fellini covering the period from 1950 to 1979."
During the 1940s, Rota composed scores for more than 32 films, including Renato Castellani
Renato Castellani
Renato Castellani was an Italian film director and screenwriter.- Filmography :*The Iron Crown *Un colpo di pistola *Zazà...
's Zazà (1944). His association with Fellini began with The White Sheik
The White Sheik
The White Sheik is a 1952 film by Federico Fellini starring Leopoldo Trieste, Alberto Sordi, and Brunella Bovo.- Plot :Two young newlyweds from a provincial town, Wanda and Ivan Cavalli , arrive in Rome for their honeymoon...
(1952), followed by I vitelloni
I Vitelloni
I vitelloni is an Italian comedy drama film directed by Federico Fellini. Recognized as a pivotal work in the director's artistic evolution, the film has distinct autobiographical elements that mirror important societal changes in 1950s Italy....
(1953) and La Strada
La Strada
La Strada is a 1954 Italian neorealist drama directed by Federico Fellini in which a naïve young woman is sold to a brutish man and goes on the road as a part of his itinerant show....
(1954). They continued to work together for decades, and Fellini recalled:
- The most precious collaborator I have ever had, I say it straightaway and don't even have to hesitate, was Nino Rota — between us, immediately, a complete, total, harmony ... He had a geometric imagination, a musical approach worthy of celestial spheres. He thus had no need to see images from my movies. When I asked him about the melodies he had in mind to comment one sequence or another, I clearly realized he was not concerned with images at all. His world was inner, inside himself, and reality had no way to enter it.
The relationship between Fellini and Rota was so strong that even at Fellini's funeral Giulietta Masina
Giulietta Masina
Giulietta Masina was an Italian film and stage actress. She starred in La Strada and Nights of Cabiria, both winners of the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, in 1956 and 1957, respectively...
, Fellini's wife, asked trumpeter Mauro Maur
Mauro Maur
- Biography :First Trumpet for the Orchestra of the Opera House in Rome from 1985 to 2009, Mauro Maur has appeared on several popular television shows such as:...
to play Rota's Improvviso dell'Angelo in the Basilica di Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri
Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri
The Basilica of St. Mary of the Angels and the Martyrs is a titular basilica church in Rome, built inside the frigidarium of the Baths of Diocletian. The Cardinal priest of the is William Henry Keeler.- The basilica :...
in Rome.
Rota's score for Fellini's 8½
8½
8½ is a 1963 Italian fantasy film directed by Federico Fellini. Co-scripted by Fellini, Tullio Pinelli, Ennio Flaiano, and Brunello Rondi, it stars Marcello Mastroianni as Guido Anselmi, a famous Italian film director...
(1963) is often cited as one of the factors which makes the film cohesive. His score for Fellini's Juliet of the Spirits
Juliet of the Spirits
Juliet of the Spirits is a 1965 Italian film directed by Federico Fellini that uses "caricatural types and dream situations to represent a psychic landscape"...
(1965) included a collaboration with Eugene Walter
Eugene Walter
Eugene Ferdinand Walter, Jr. was an American screenwriter, poet, short-story author, actor, puppeteer, gourmet chef, cryptographer, translator, editor, costume designer and well-known raconteur. During his years in Paris, he was nicknamed Tum-te-tum...
on the song, "Go Milk the Moon" (cut from the final version of the film), and they teamed again for the song "What Is a Youth?", part of Rota's score for Franco Zeffirelli
Franco Zeffirelli
Franco Zeffirelli KBE is an Italian director and producer of films and television. He is also a director and designer of operas and a former senator for the Italian center-right Forza Italia party....
's Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet (1968 film)
Romeo and Juliet is a 1968 British-Italian cinematic adaptation of the William Shakespeare play of the same name.The film was directed and co-written by Franco Zeffirelli, and stars Leonard Whiting and Olivia Hussey. It won Academy Awards for Best Cinematography and Best Costume Design; it was also...
.
The American Film Institute
American Film Institute
The American Film Institute is an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act...
ranked Rota's score for The Godfather
The Godfather
The Godfather is a 1972 American epic crime film directed by Francis Ford Coppola, based on the 1969 novel by Mario Puzo. With a screenplay by Puzo, Coppola and an uncredited Robert Towne, the film stars Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, Robert Duvall, Sterling Hayden, John Marley, Richard...
#5 on their list of the greatest film scores
AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores
Part of the AFI 100 Years… series, AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores is a list of the top 25 film scores in American cinema. The list was unveiled by the American Film Institute in 2005.-The List:-External links:**...
. His score for War and Peace
War and Peace (1956 film)
War and Peace is the first English-language film version of the novel War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy. It is an American/Italian version, directed by King Vidor and produced by Dino De Laurentiis and Carlo Ponti. The music score was by Nino Rota and the cinematography by Jack Cardiff...
was also nominated for the list.
In all, Rota wrote scores to more than 150 films.
Orchestral, chamber and choral music
Rota wrote numerous concerti and other orchestral works as well as piano, chamber and choral music, much of which has been recorded and released on CD. After his death from heart failureCongestive heart failure
Heart failure often called congestive heart failure is generally defined as the inability of the heart to supply sufficient blood flow to meet the needs of the body. Heart failure can cause a number of symptoms including shortness of breath, leg swelling, and exercise intolerance. The condition...
in 1979, Rota's music was the subject of Hal Willner
Hal Willner
Hal Willner is an American music producer working in recording, films, TV and live events. He is best known for assembling tribute albums and events featuring a wide variety of artists and musical styles...
's 1981 tribute album
Tribute album
A tribute album is a recorded collection of cover versions of songs or instrumental compositions. Its concept may be either various artists making a tribute to a single artist, a single artist making a tribute to various artists, or a single artist making a tribute to another single artist.There...
Amarcord Nino Rota, which featured several at the time relatively unknown but now famous jazz musicians. Gus Van Sant
Gus Van Sant
Gus Green Van Sant, Jr. is an American director, screenwriter, painter, photographer, musician, and author. He is a two time nominee of the Academy Award for Best Director for his 1997 film Good Will Hunting and his 2008 film Milk, both of which were also nominated for Best Picture, and won the...
used some of Rota's music in his 2007 film Paranoid Park
Paranoid Park (film)
Paranoid Park is a 2007 American drama film written and directed by Gus Van Sant. The film is based on the novel of the same name by Blake Nelson and takes place in Portland, Oregon. It stars Gabe Nevins as a teenage skateboarder who accidentally kills a security guard.Van Sant wrote the draft...
and director Michael Winterbottom
Michael Winterbottom
Michael Winterbottom is a prolific English filmmaker who has directed seventeen feature films in the past fifteen years. He began his career working in British television before moving into features...
used several Rota selections in the 2005 film Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story
A Cock and Bull Story
A Cock and Bull Story is a 2006 British comedy film directed by Michael Winterbottom...
. Danny Elfman
Danny Elfman
Daniel Robert "Danny" Elfman is an American composer, best known for scoring music for television and film. Up until 1995, he was the lead singer and songwriter in the rock band Oingo Boingo, a group he formed in 1976...
frequently cites Nino Rota as a major influence. Director Mario Monicelli
Mario Monicelli
Mario Monicelli was an Italian director and screenwriter and one of the masters of the Commedia all'Italiana , three times nominated for Oscar.-Biography:...
filmed a documentary Un amico magico: il maestro Nino Rota which featured interviews with Franco Zeffirelli
Franco Zeffirelli
Franco Zeffirelli KBE is an Italian director and producer of films and television. He is also a director and designer of operas and a former senator for the Italian center-right Forza Italia party....
and Riccardo Muti
Riccardo Muti
Riccardo Muti, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI is an Italian conductor and music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.-Childhood and education:...
(a student under Rota at Bari Conservatory), and was followed by a German documentary Nino Rota - Un maestro della musica. Both explored film and concert sides of the composer.
Operas
His 1955 opera Il cappello di paglia di FirenzeIl cappello di paglia di Firenze
Il cappello di paglia di Firenze is an opera by Nino Rota to an Italian-language libretto by the composer and Ernesta Rota, based on the play Le chapeau de paille d'Italie by Eugène Labiche and Marc Michel.The opera premièred at the Teatro...
(The Florentine Straw Hat), an adaptation of the play by Eugène Labiche was presented by the Santa Fe Opera
Santa Fe Opera
The Santa Fe Opera is an American opera company, located north of Santa Fe in the U.S. state of New Mexico, headquartered on a former guest ranch of .-General history:...
in 1977. In 2005 his opera Aladino e la lampada magica (Aladdin and the Magical Lamp), with Cosmin Ifrim in the title role, was performed in German translation at the Vienna State Opera
Vienna State Opera
The Vienna State Opera is an opera house – and opera company – with a history dating back to the mid-19th century. It is located in the centre of Vienna, Austria. It was originally called the Vienna Court Opera . In 1920, with the replacement of the Habsburg Monarchy by the First Austrian...
and released on DVD.
Written for a radio production by RAI
RAI
RAI — Radiotelevisione italiana S.p.A. known until 1954 as Radio Audizioni Italiane, is the Italian state owned public service broadcaster controlled by the Ministry of Economic Development. Rai is the biggest television company in Italy...
in 1950, his short opera, I due timidi
I due timidi
I due timidi is a one-act radio opera composed in 1950 by Nino Rota with libretto by the film writer Suso Cecchi d'Amico.-Performance history:...
(The Two Timid Ones), was presented by the Santa Fe Opera as part of their pre-season "One-Hour Opera" program in May/June 2008.
Quotations
Federico FelliniFederico Fellini
Federico Fellini, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI , was an Italian film director and scriptwriter. Known for a distinct style that blends fantasy and baroque images, he is considered one of the most influential and widely revered filmmakers of the 20th century...
recalls his first chance meeting with Rota:
- "Outside Cinecittà, I noticed a funny little man waiting in the wrong place for the tram. He seemed happily oblivious of everything. I felt compelled ... to wait with him.... I was certain that the tram would stop in its regular place and we would have to run for it, and he was equally certain it would stop where he was standing ... To my surprise, the tram did stop right in front of us."
A critic conversing with Nino Rota at the age of eleven just prior to a performance of his oratorio, The Childhood of St. John the Baptist, in 1923:
- Critic: "Do you like playing?"
- Rota: "Whenever I can ... Is it hard to write for a newspaper?"
- Critic: "It's not easy to do a good article"
- Rota: "Have you come from Brussels specially to hear my oratorio?"
- Critic: "I certainly have, my little friend."
- Rota: "That’s really funny. I won’t be conducting it tonight. Yesterday the double bass snubbed me"
On his friendship with Igor Stravinsky
Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....
:
- "Stravinsky was fun; his mind struck sparks. Age was no barrier - ours became a true friendship, despite distance and meeting ever more rarely."
Nino Rota reflecting on the unhappiness of others:
- "When I’m creating at the piano, I tend to feel happy; but - the eternal dilemma - how can we be happy amid the unhappiness of others? I'd do everything I could to give everyone a moment of happiness. That's what's at the heart of my music."
Federico Fellini
Federico Fellini
Federico Fellini, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI , was an Italian film director and scriptwriter. Known for a distinct style that blends fantasy and baroque images, he is considered one of the most influential and widely revered filmmakers of the 20th century...
on Nino Rota:
- "He was someone who had a rare quality belonging to the world of intuition. Just like children, simple men, sensitive people, innocent people, he would suddenly say dazzling things. As soon as he arrived, stress disappeared, everything turned into a festive atmosphere; the movie entered a joyful, serene, fantastic period, a new life."
Works
External links
- http://www.schott-music.com/shop/persons/featured/16370/news/
- Nino Rota official site