Nino Rota Symphonies Nos 1 & 2
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NINO ROta SYMPHONIES NOS 1 & 2 FILARMONICA ’900 DEL TEatRO REGIO DI TORINO CHAN 10546 MARZIO CONTI Nino Rota (1911 –1979) * © Album / AKG Images, London Symphony No. 1 30:36 in G major • in G-Dur • en sol majeur • in sol maggiore 1 I Allegro con moto 9:58 2 II Andante 8:21 3 III Allegro vivace 3:50 4 IV Largo maestoso – Poco più andante – Allegro 8:18 Symphony No. 2† 31:21 in F major • in F-Dur • en fa majeur • in fa maggiore 5 I Allegro tranquillo 8:20 6 II Allegro molto vivace 7:52 7 III Andante con moto 7:28 8 IV Allegro vivace 7:26 TT 62:10 Filarmonica ’900 del Teatro Regio di Torino Stefano Vagnarelli* • Serguei Galaktionov†leaders Marzio Conti Nino Rota 3 Nino Rota: Symphonies Nos 1 and 2 When the American composer Victor the reluctance of cultured critical opinion Schertzinger (1888 – 1941) wrote and to respond sympathetically to an art that recorded his score for the soundtrack of could potentially prove mere entertainment, Reginald Becker’s Civilization in 1916, this every serious composer tried to take all due was the first time ever that music had been countermeasures. Many famous musical specifically produced for such a purpose, personalities hesitated to descend from the and instrumental music had suddenly found Olympian heights of serious music to the a new role. No longer was it only a medium vulgar world of the cinema (apart from those of expression to be valued and enjoyed who radically adapted their own musical through the exercise of the listener’s own language, such as Dmitri Shostakovich). imagination or, at most, by reference to a Nino Rota was different, one might say more or less specific programme directly unique. He grew up in a Europe that was suggested by the composer (one thinks, for musically straddling two avant-gardes. example, of Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique, Although having the deepest respect for the of Liszt’s symphonic poems based on daring experiments of his already famous literary or historical reminiscence, and contemporaries of the Second Viennese of the hidden programmes in the works School, headed by Arnold Schoenberg, he of Robert Schumann). It now became was also, and more importantly, influenced an important descriptive and structural by the specifically Italian ‘Gruppo dell’Ottanta’ element, called upon above all to contribute (the collective name by which a generation to the spectacular nature of the nascent of composers, born in the 1880s, became ‘seventh art’. It was now inevitable that known) that included Gian Francesco every kind of music should be rated as Malipiero, Ildebrando Pizzetti and Alfredo much for its filmic potentialities as for its Casella. He wrote more than one hundred intrinsic merits, a value judgement which film scores and as many ‘serious’, i.e. non- unfortunately would often end by becoming cinematic, works, but never embraced a an appalling double-edged sword. Given dictatorial intellectualism that would have 4 5 forced an abrupt change of style every time States on a study bursary to attend The inexorably until shortly before the end of his to whom the work is dedicated – then he found himself writing for the concert hall Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. life. The score for Jan Troell’s Hurricane was, Director of Teatro La Fenice in Venice, who and the operatic stage. Instead, he always There he worked with Fritz Reiner, taking in fact, finished only months before he died in helped the favourable critical reception of the maintained intact that poetic neoclassicism, advantage of his weekends to pay frequent Rome in April 1979. work by including it in a programme peculiarly imaginative and slightly retro, which in visits to the apartment of Arturo Toscanini well suited to emphasise its heightened the end, perhaps because of his evident in New York. Here he had the opportunity Symphony No. 1 in G major for Orchestra descriptive capacities (Handel’s Water Music, genuineness, earned him the love both of to mix with many illustrious musicians, Of the four symphonies that appear in Bartók’s Rhapsody for Piano and Orchestra the general public and the most demanding including Samuel Barber, Aaron Copland Rota’s catalogue, the First and Second took and Sonata for Two Pianos, and Mussorgsky’s critics. and, most importantly of all, Ralph Vaughan shape simultaneously during the second Pictures at an Exhibition, orchestrated by Born in Milan in December 1911, he began Williams. As we shall see, the influence of half of the 1930s, when Rota had already Ravel). The four-movement structure, clearly to compose while still very young under the Vaughan Williams was to become evident developed his unmistakable, predominantly derived from Brahms, has a tripartite first guidance of Pizzetti and Giacomo Orefice, especially where the art of orchestration melodic style. Hints of a tenuous, temperate movement, incredibly tender, and rich in from whom he undoubtedly derived his love and a taste for musical landscape painting modernism are discernible, but at the same melodic motifs that continually suggest of the clear, evocative instrumental and vocal carried to extremes were concerned. Having time he determinedly avoids any extreme an open-air, possibly marine, environment. writing that is quintessentially Italian. He returned to Italy, he studied for a degree in experimentation with musical language. Swathes of strings are sharply juxtaposed demonstrated a mature and well-rounded literature, graduating with a thesis on the Common to both symphonies is a directness with soloistic interventions from the winds, musicianship almost from the start. In sixteenth-century theorist and composer of expression embedded in a neoclassical a style adopting both the atmosphere of 1922, aged only eleven, he composed the Gioseffo Zarlino (the codifier of the twelve- style that constantly celebrates landscape a concerto grosso and clear references oratorio L’infanzia di San Giovanni Battista note octave and of modern tonality based in sound. This provides a recurring motif to Debussy’s La Mer. Similarly striking is (The Childhood of St John the Baptist) for on major and minor scales) before becoming in a catalogue that numbers such titles as the contrast presented by the second soloists, chorus and orchestra, performances a teacher of harmony and composition first Campane a festa and Campane a sera (for solo movement, in which the woodwind often give of which were enthusiastically received in Taranto, in 1937, then in Bari, in 1939. His piano, 1931 – 33), La Fiera di Bari (for orchestra, way to the darker timbre of the brass – almost in both Italy and France. He entered the striking production of music for films began 1963), Castel del Monte (for French horn and a prophetic vision of the imminent Second Milan Conservatory and at the same time at roughly the same time, in 1933, with the orchestra, 1974) and Guardando il Fujiyama World War – over a string foundation in which studied privately with Casella; in 1930 he soundtrack for Raffaello Matarazzo’s Treno (for orchestra, 1976). echoes of the afternoons spent with Vaughan was awarded a diploma from the Accademia popolare. This was followed by a string of Symphony No. 1 in G major (1935 – 39) Williams in Toscanini’s apartment are present di Santa Cecilia. In the same year, with an projects that saw him collaborating with was given its first performance by the in profusion. If the third movement, next, is oratorio, an opera – Il Principe Porcaro (1926), nearly all the great directors of the twentieth Orchestra of Santa Cecilia under the baton rhapsodic – we may regard it almost as a based on Hans Christian Andersen’s fairytale century (Visconti, Fellini, Zeffirelli, Coppola, of Mario Rossi on 18 February 1940; other scherzo, by virtue of its rhythmic profile and The Swineherd – and a handful of chamber et al.), his film work winning him an Oscar for performances followed thanks to the interest formal function – the sumptuous theatricality works to his credit, he travelled to the United The Godfather– Part 2 in 1974 and continuing shown by the esteemed Goffredo Petrassi – of the fourth reassembles the various parts 6 7 of the musical fresco in a masterly and atmosphere of the third movement, strings Giuseppe di Stefano, Plácido Domingo and the films Il dolce e l’amaro and Le ali of Andrea unified synthesis that is extremely effective. and horns return to the austerity of Vaughan Luciano Pavarotti. As symphony orchestra it Porporati. Williams’s symphonic style as encountered has set itself the goal of exploring the wide Symphony No. 2 in F major for Orchestra in Symphony No. 1, the fourth is nothing variety of music of the twentieth century, Marzio Conti began his artistic career as Rota adopted a different plan for his other than an extenuating beating out of with a particular focus on the intersection a flautist and in 1981 made his debut as a Symphony No. 2 in F major (1937 – 39), dotted rhythms beneath a soft, velvety between ‘classical’ music and new trends, soloist at the Salzburg Festival. Ten years scoring it for a slightly smaller orchestra and, melodic mantle, a clear musical depiction where these are not only contrasted with but ago he gave up his career as a soloist and more importantly, giving it a programmatic of that freedom of expression so dear to enriched by each other. With a core repertoire teacher to dedicate himself to conducting. title clearly derived from Liszt (Anni di Rota (represented here by his evocation of of works by such composers as Mahler, He collaborates with opera companies Pellegrinaggio –Tarantina), undoubtedly a the joyous, sun-drenched life of the South) Strauss, Ravel, Prokofiev, Berg, Copland, throughout Italy, among them the Teatro reference to the new kind of life-style which who was determined not to bow to the cold Respighi and Shostakovich, the orchestra Regio in Turin, Teatro dell’Opera in Rome, he was beginning to enjoy, having just intellectualism of the new avant-garde also embraces jazz, music for films, and Teatro Massimo in Palermo, Teatro Comunale moved from the chaotic bustle of Rome to waiting in the wings.