The Film Music of Nino Rota

Following the success of his last disc of Rota’s Piano Concertos with Chandos, Massimo Palumbo returns with a disc or Rota’s Films Music.

This disc features a unique and fascinating selection of music Nino Rota wrote for twelve films, including probably his most famous score for The Godfather, performed here on the piano as originally conceived.

The rarely works are all played on the piano in the composer’s original or transcribed versions.

Massimo Palumbo was born in Milan in 1965. he studied piano from the age of five with Albert Mozzati, later enrolling at the Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory in Milan. In 1983 he won the UNICEF International Competition and made his TV debut playing Brahms’s Two Rhapsodies. He is frequently invited to play at important venues and festivals throughout Europe, and has toured Brazil, the USA and Japan.

This recording of the film music of Nino Rota contains transcriptions for the piano made by the composer, as played to friends. Not only does it include the great international successes such as The Godfather, Romeo and Juliet, Otto e mezzo, Giulietta degli spiriti, The Taming of the Shrew and Il Gattopardo (The Leopard), but it also includes unpublished soundtracks, in particular those written for films mistakenly considered ‘minor’ such as Fanciulle di lusso (Luxury Girls), Fantasmi a Roma (Ghosts in Rome) and Quel bandit sono io (Her Favourite husband).

Also included are the musical masterpieces he wrote for British films, The Legend of the Glass Mountain and Obsession. Rota had a special fondness for these, and it was largely through them that he achieved international star status in the forties, well before his outstandingly successful collaboration with Fellini. Such was the success of the score for The Glass Mountain that it was broadcast in its entirety at scheduled times, with the famous love scene as recorded here played on the piano by Nino Rota himself. To Rota it was the theme that was dearest to him of all.

The Film Music of Nino Rota

Massimo Palumbo

Genoa, Italy

Gian Andrea Lodovici

Rino Trasi

Orchestral & Concertos

The Film Music of Nino Rota (on Piano)

NINO ROTA

The Godfather

The Glass Mountain

Fanciulle di lusso

Death on the Nile

Romeo and Juliet

Fantasmi a Roma

Obsession

Otto e mezzo

Il Gattopardo

Giulietta degli spiriti

The Taming of the Shrew

Quel bandito sono io