Giovanni Rota Rinaldi (; 3 December 1911 – 10 April 1979), better known as Nino Rota (), was an Italian

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and Defi ...

, pianist, conductor and academic who is best known for his

film score A film score is original music written specifically to accompany a film. The score comprises a number of orchestral, instrumental, or choral pieces called cues, which are timed to begin and end at specific points during the film in order to ...

s, notably for the films of

Federico Fellini Federico Fellini (; 20 January 1920 – 31 October 1993) was an Italian film director and screenwriter known for his distinctive style, which blends fantasy and baroque images with earthiness. He is recognized as one of the greatest and most i ...

and

Luchino Visconti Luchino Visconti di Modrone, Count of Lonate Pozzolo (; 2 November 1906 – 17 March 1976) was an Italian filmmaker, stage director, and screenwriter. A major figure of Italian art and culture in the mid-20th century, Visconti was one of the fat ...

. He also composed the music for two of

Franco Zeffirelli Gian Franco Corsi Zeffirelli (12 February 1923 – 15 June 2019), was an Italian stage and film director, producer, production designer and politician. He was one of the most significant opera and theatre directors of the post-World War II era, ...

Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

films, and for the first two films of

Francis Ford Coppola Francis Ford Coppola (; ; born April 7, 1939) is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. He is considered one of the major figures of the New Hollywood filmmaking movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Coppola is the recipient of five A ...

's '' Godfather'' trilogy, earning the

Academy Award for Best Original Score The Academy Award for Best Original Score is an award presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) to the best substantial body of music in the form of dramatic underscoring written specifically for the film by t ...

for ''

The Godfather Part II ''The Godfather Part II'' is a 1974 American epic crime film produced and directed by Francis Ford Coppola. The film is partially based on the 1969 novel ''The Godfather'' by Mario Puzo, who co-wrote the screenplay with Coppola. ''Part II'' s ...

'' (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 is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a librett ...

s, five

ballet Ballet () is a type of performance dance that originated during the Italian Renaissance in the fifteenth century and later developed into a concert dance form in France and Russia. It has since become a widespread and highly technical form of ...

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 (; 24 May 1900 – 31 October 1984), also known simply as ''Eduardo'', was an Italian actor, director, screenwriter and playwright, best known for his Neapolitan works ''Filumena Marturano'' and '' Napoli Milionaria''. Consid ...

as well as maintaining a long teaching career at the Liceo Musicale in

Bari Bari ( , ; nap, label= Barese, Bare ; lat, Barium) is the capital city of the Metropolitan City of Bari and of the Apulia region, on the Adriatic Sea, southern Italy. It is the second most important economic centre of mainland Southern Italy a ...

, Italy, where he was the director for almost 30 years.

Early career

Rota was born Giovanni Rota Rinaldi on 3 December 1911, into a musical family in

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...

, Italy. Rota was a renowned child prodigy — his first ''

oratorio An oratorio () is a large musical composition for orchestra, choir, and soloists. Like most operas, an oratorio includes the use of a choir, soloists, an instrumental ensemble, various distinguishable characters, and arias. However, opera is mus ...

'', ''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 ( , ; 2 April 1805 – 4 August 1875) was a Danish author. Although a prolific writer of plays, travelogues, novels, and poems, he is best remembered for his literary fairy tales. Andersen's fairy tales, consisti ...

, ''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 (27 August 1865 – 22 December 1922) was an Italian composer. He was born in Vicenza. He studied under Alessandro Busi and Luigi Mancinelli at the Liceo Musicale di Bologna, and later became professor of composition at the ...

and then undertook serious study of composition under

Ildebrando Pizzetti Ildebrando Pizzetti (20 September 1880 – 13 February 1968) was an Italian composer of classical music, Musicology, musicologist, and Music criticism, music critic. Biography Pizzetti was born in Parma in 1880. He was part of the "Generation ...

and

Alfredo Casella Alfredo Casella (25 July 18835 March 1947) was an Italian composer, pianist and conductor. Life and career Casella was born in Turin, the son of Maria (née Bordino) and Carlo Casella. His family included many musicians: his grandfather, a f ...

at the

Conservatorio Santa Cecilia The Conservatorio di Musica Santa Cecilia is a state conservatory in Rome. History The institution has its roots dated back to the Congregazione de' musici di Roma named after Saint Cecilia in 1565 (now Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia). Sin ...

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

, graduating in 1930.Slonimsky, p. 1063 Encouraged by

Arturo Toscanini Arturo Toscanini (; ; March 25, 1867January 16, 1957) was an Italian conductor. He was one of the most acclaimed and influential musicians of the late 19th and early 20th century, renowned for his intensity, his perfectionism, his ear for orch ...

, Rota moved to the United States, where he lived from 1930 to 1932. He won a scholarship to the Curtis Institute of

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

, where he was taught conducting by

Fritz Reiner Frederick Martin "Fritz" Reiner (December 19, 1888 – November 15, 1963) was a prominent conductor of opera and symphonic music in the twentieth century. Hungarian born and trained, he emigrated to the United States in 1922, where he rose t ...

and had

Rosario Scalero Natale Rosario Scalero (24 December 1870 in Moncalieri - 25 December 1954 in Montestrutto) was an Italian violinist, music teacher and composer. Life and career By the age of six, Scalero was under the tutelage of Pietro Bertazzi, a violinis ...

as an instructor in composition. Returning to Milan, he wrote a thesis on the

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas ...

composer

Gioseffo Zarlino Gioseffo Zarlino (31 January or 22 March 1517 – 4 February 1590) was an Italian music theorist and composer of the Renaissance. He made a large contribution to the theory of counterpoint as well as to musical tuning. Life and career Zarlin ...

. 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

, a title he held from 1950 until 1978.

Film scores

Nino Rota wrote the score for the film '' The Glass Mountain'' in 1949. Notable was the singing of

Tito Gobbi Tito Gobbi (24 October 19135 March 1984) was an Italian operatic baritone with an international reputation. He made his operatic debut in Gubbio in 1935 as Count Rodolfo in Bellini's ''La sonnambula'' and quickly appeared in Italy's major opera ...

. The film won a number of awards. In his entry on Rota in the 1988 edition of ''The Concise Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Composers and Musicians'', music scholar

Nicolas Slonimsky Nicolas Slonimsky ( – December 25, 1995), born Nikolai Leonidovich Slonimskiy (russian: Никола́й Леони́дович Сло́нимский), was a Russian-born American conductor, author, pianist, composer and lexicographer. B ...

described him as "brilliant" and stated that his musical style: One of Rota's compositional habits, however, came up for disapproving remarks: his penchant for pastiche of various past styles, which quite often turned into outright quotation of his own earlier music or even others' music. One of the most noticed examples of such incorporation is his use of the ''

Larghetto In musical terminology, tempo (Italian, 'time'; plural ''tempos'', or ''tempi'' from the Italian plural) is the speed or pace of a given piece. In classical music, tempo is typically indicated with an instruction at the start of a piece (often ...

'' from Dvorák's ''Serenade for Strings in E major'' as a theme for a character in Fellini's ''

La Strada ''La strada'' () is a 1954 Italian drama film directed by Federico Fellini and co-written by Fellini, Tullio Pinelli and Ennio Flaiano. The film tells the story of Gelsomina, a simple-minded young woman (Giulietta Masina) bought from her mother ...

''. During the 1940s, Rota composed scores for more than 32 films, including

Renato Castellani Renato Castellani (4 September 1913 in Varigotti, Liguria – 28 December 1985 in Rome) was an Italian film director and screenwriter. Early life Son of a representative of Kodak, he was born in Varigotti, a hamlet at the time of Final Pia, ...

's ' (1944). His association with Fellini began with '' Lo Sceicco Bianco (

The White Sheik ''The White Sheik'' ( it, Lo sceicco bianco) is a 1952 Italian romantic comedy film directed by Federico Fellini and starring Alberto Sordi, Leopoldo Trieste, Brunella Bovo and Giulietta Masina. Written by Fellini, Tullio Pinelli, Ennio Flaiano a ...

)'' (1952), followed by ''

I Vitelloni ''I vitelloni'' (, literally "The bullocks" - Romagnol slang for "The slackers" or "The layabouts") is a 1953 comedy-drama film directed by Federico Fellini from a screenplay written by himself, Ennio Flaiano and Tullio Pinelli. It stars Franco ...

'' (1953) and ''

(The Road)'' (1954). They continued to work together for decades, and Fellini recalled: The relationship between Fellini and Rota was so strong that at Fellini's funeral

Giulietta Masina Giulia Anna "Giulietta" Masina (22 February 1921 – 23 March 1994) was an Italian film actress best known for her performances as Gelsomina in ''La Strada'' (1954) and Cabiria in ''Nights of Cabiria'' (1957), for which she won the Cannes Film F ...

, 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 The Basilica of St. Mary of the Angels and of the Martyrs ( la, Beatissimae Virginis et omnium Angelorum et Martyrum, it, Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri) is a basilica and titular church in Rome, Italy, built inside the ruined ''frigida ...

in Rome. Rota's score for Fellini's ''

8½ ' (Italian title: , ) is a 1963 surrealist comedy-drama film directed and co-written (with Tullio Pinelli, Ennio Flaiano and Brunello Rondi) by Italian filmmaker Federico Fellini. The metafictional narrative centers on Guido Anselmi, played by M ...

'' (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'' ( it, Giulietta degli spiriti) is a 1965 fantasy comedy-drama film directed by Federico Fellini and starring Giulietta Masina, Sandra Milo, Mario Pisu, Valentina Cortese, and Valeska Gert. The film is about the vi ...

'' (1965) included a collaboration with

Eugene Walter Eugene Ferdinand Walter, Jr. (November 30, 1921 – March 29, 1998) was an American screenwriter, poet, short-story author, actor, puppeteer, gourmet chef, cryptographer, translator, editor, costume designer and well-known raconteur. During his y ...

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

's ''

Romeo and Juliet ''Romeo and Juliet'' is a Shakespearean tragedy, tragedy written by William Shakespeare early in his career about the romance between two Italian youths from feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular plays during his lifetim ...

''. The

American Film Institute The American Film Institute (AFI) is an American nonprofit film organization that educates filmmakers and honors the heritage of the motion picture arts in the United States. AFI is supported by private funding and public membership fees. Leade ...

ranked Rota's score for ''

The Godfather ''The Godfather'' is a 1972 American crime film directed by Francis Ford Coppola, who co-wrote the screenplay with Mario Puzo, based on Puzo's best-selling 1969 novel of the same title. The film stars Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, ...

'' number 5 on their list of the greatest film scores. After being nominated for an Academy Award for this score, the nomination was later revoked when it was discovered that Rota recycled a theme from a previous score, one he wrote two decades prior for the film '' Fortunella'' and thus no longer considered original despite being played differently. The nomination was then given to the film ''

Sleuth Sleuth may refer to: * Detective *Sleuth, collective noun for a group of bears Computing * The Sleuth Kit, a collection of forensic analysis software *SLEUTH assembler language for the UNIVAC 1107 Entertainment and media *Cloo Cloo (stylized ...

'', while

Charlie Chaplin Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin Jr. (16 April 188925 December 1977) was an English comic actor, filmmaker, and composer who rose to fame in the era of silent film. He became a worldwide icon through his screen persona, the Tramp, and is consider ...

and two co-authors for their score featured in ''

Limelight Limelight (also known as Drummond light or calcium light)James R. Smith (2004). ''San Francisco's Lost Landmarks'', Quill Driver Books. is a type of stage lighting once used in theatres and music halls. An intense illumination is created when ...

'', a 21-year-old film that had just become eligible because it had not been screened in

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

until 1972, went on to win the award. He went on to win an Oscar for his score for ''

''. His score for ''

War and Peace ''War and Peace'' (russian: Война и мир, translit=Voyna i mir; pre-reform Russian: ; ) is a literary work by the Russian author Leo Tolstoy that mixes fictional narrative with chapters on history and philosophy. It was first published ...

'' 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 failure Heart failure (HF), also known as congestive heart failure (CHF), is a syndrome, a group of signs and symptoms caused by an impairment of the heart's blood pumping function. Symptoms typically include shortness of breath, excessive fatigue, a ...

in 1979, Rota's music was the subject of

Hal Willner Hal Willner (April 6, 1956 – April 7, 2020) was an American music producer working in recording, films, television, and live events. He was best known for assembling tribute albums and events featuring a wide variety of artists and musical sty ...

's 1981

tribute album An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early 20th century as individual 78 rpm records coll ...

Amarcord Nino Rota ''Amarcord Nino Rota'' is an album by various artists, recorded as a tribute to composer Nino Rota. Background and recording The album is a tribute to composer Nino Rota and contains adaptations of his compositions for Federico Fellini films. It ...

'', which featured several at the time relatively unknown but now famous jazz musicians.

Gus Van Sant Gus Green Van Sant Jr. (born July 24, 1952) is an American film director, producer, photographer, and musician. He has earned acclaim as both an independent and mainstream filmmaker. His films typically deal with themes of marginalized subcultur ...

used some of Rota's music in his 2007 film '' Paranoid Park'' and director

Michael Winterbottom Michael Winterbottom (born 29 March 1961) is an English film director. He began his career working in British television before moving into features. Three of his films—''Welcome to Sarajevo'', '' Wonderland'' and '' 24 Hour Party People''� ...

used several Rota selections in the 2005 film '' Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story''.

Danny Elfman Daniel Robert Elfman (born May 29, 1953) is an American film composer, singer and songwriter. He came to prominence as the singer-songwriter for the new wave band Oingo Boingo in the early 1980s. Since the 1990s, Elfman has garnered internation ...

frequently cites Nino Rota as a major influence (particularly on his scores for the Pee-Wee films). Director

Mario Monicelli Mario Alberto Ettore Monicelli (; 16 May 1915 – 29 November 2010) was an Italian film director and screenwriter and one of the masters of the ''Commedia all'Italiana'' (Comedy Italian style). He was nominated six times for an Oscar, and was awa ...

filmed a documentary ''Un amico magico: il maestro Nino Rota'' which featured interviews with

and

Riccardo Muti Riccardo Muti, (; born 28 July 1941) is an Italian conductor. He currently holds two music directorships, at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and at the Orchestra Giovanile Luigi Cherubini. Muti has previously held posts at the Maggio Musicale ...

(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 Firenze ''Il cappello di paglia di Firenze'' (''The Florentine Straw Hat'', usually titled in English language productions as ''The Italian Straw Hat'') is an opera by Nino Rota to an Italian-language libretto by the composer and his mother, Ernesta Ro ...

'' (''The Florentine Straw Hat'') is an adaptation of the play by

Eugène Labiche Eugene is a common male given name that comes from the Greek εὐγενής (''eugenēs''), "noble", literally "well-born", from εὖ (''eu''), "well" and γένος (''genos''), "race, stock, kin".Santa Fe Opera Santa Fe Opera (SFO) is an American opera company, located north of Santa Fe, New Mexico. After creating the ''Opera Association of New Mexico'' in 1956, its founding director, John Crosby (conductor), John Crosby, oversaw the building of the fir ...

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 The Vienna State Opera (, ) is an opera house and opera company based in Vienna, Austria. The 1,709-seat Renaissance Revival venue was the first major building on the Vienna Ring Road. It was built from 1861 to 1869 following plans by August S ...

and released on DVD. ''

'' and ''Aladino e la lampada magica'' are regularly staged in Europe as are many symphonic and chamber titles Written for a radio production by

RAI RAI – Radiotelevisione italiana (; commercially styled as Rai since 2000; known until 1954 as Radio Audizioni Italiane) is the national public broadcasting company of Italy, owned by the Ministry of Economy and Finance. RAI operates many ter ...

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.

Personal life and death

He had one daughter, Nina Rota, from a relationship with pianist Magda Longari. Lombardi, Francesco
"Nino Rota: un timido protagonista del Novecento musicale"
(EDT, Torino, 2012, ISBN 9788866397946, 8866397946), p. 189 Nino Rota died in Rome on 10 April 1979, aged 67, from a

coronary thrombosis Coronary thrombosis is defined as the formation of a blood clot inside a blood vessel of the heart. This blood clot may then restrict blood flow within the heart, leading to heart tissue damage, or a myocardial infarction, also known as a heart at ...

Quotations

recalls his first chance meeting with Rota: :"Outside

Cinecittà Cinecittà Studios (; Italian for Cinema City Studios), is a large film studio in Rome, Italy. With an area of 400,000 square metres (99 acres), it is the largest film studio in Europe, and is considered the hub of Italian cinema. The studios we ...

, 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 especially 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 Fyodorovich Stravinsky (6 April 1971) was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor, later of French (from 1934) and American (from 1945) citizenship. He is widely considered one of the most important and influential composers of the ...

: :"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."

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

Discography

References

External links

* *
Schott Music
profile {{DEFAULTSORT:Rota, Nino 1911 births 1979 deaths 20th-century classical composers 20th-century Italian composers 20th-century Italian male musicians Conservatorio Santa Cecilia alumni Best Original Music BAFTA Award winners Best Original Music Score Academy Award winners Composers for carillon Curtis Institute of Music alumni David di Donatello winners Deaths from coronary thrombosis Golden Globe Award-winning musicians Grammy Award winners Italian film score composers Italian male classical composers Italian male film score composers Musicians from Milan Nastro d'Argento winners