Nino Rota's mother, Ernesta, sacrificed her own concert career to link her destiny with the Rota family in Milan, finding another environment conducive to music and art.
Composer Biography
Nino Rota dedicated significant time to teaching, starting young in the 1930s and later serving as director of the Bari Conservatory for twenty-five years.
Composition History
The Sarabande and Toccata for harp from 1945 are dedicated to Clelia Gatti Aldrovandi, a great harpist and wife of Guido M. Gatti, who helped introduce Rota to film soundtracks.
Composer's Artistic Vision
Alfredo Casella, one of Rota's teachers, taught him to view composing as a normal part of contemporary life, with the same dignity as any other profession.
Critical Reception
Il Presepio for soprano and string quartet, composed by Rota at age seventeen, was popular until World War II but then fell into oblivion, with this recording being its first performance in fifty years.
Composer Biography
Nino Rota began composing before he was ten years old and made his public debut at the age of twelve, a natural consequence of his musical upbringing.
Composition History
Rota's Piccola Offerta Musicale for wind quintet, dedicated to his teacher Alfredo Casella, was composed in 1943 during the darkest years of World War II.
