Riccardo Muti has done much in the orchestral arena to promote the concert music of Nino Rota who, like most film composers in the middle of the last century, wrote many traditionally ‘classical’ works and longed to be taken seriously as one capable of writing in both populist and more cerebrally satisfying styles. This disc should do much to reinvigorate his reputation as a composer of unfailingly stylish and appealing chamber music which, while never striving towards avant-garde relevance, nonetheless is marked out as music belonging to its own time – around 1950 – with post-Romantic harmonies but also a distinctively propulsive rhythmic signature, creating a tension that may remind us not only of his film music but also the late music of Bartok such as the Concerto for Orchestra.
Works:
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Rota, N: Allegro Danzante
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Rota, N: Clarinet Sonata
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Rota, N: Lo Spiritismo nella vecchia casa
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Rota, N: Trio for Clarinet, Cello and Piano
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Rota, N: Variazioni e Fuga nei dodici toni sul nome di Bach