Nino Rota facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Nino Rota
Rota (left) with Riccardo Bacchelli and Bruno Maderna in 1963
Born	Giovanni Rota Rinaldi 3 December 1911 Milan, Kingdom of Italy
Died	10 April 1979(1979-04-10) (aged 67) Rome, Italy
Occupation	Composer pianist conductor academic
Children	Nina Rota

Giovanni Rota Rinaldi (born December 3, 1911 – died April 10, 1979), known as Nino Rota, was a famous Italian composer. He was also a talented pianist, conductor, and teacher. Rota is best known for creating music for movies, especially for films by Federico Fellini and Luchino Visconti.

He also wrote the music for two of Franco Zeffirelli's films based on William Shakespeare's plays. You might also know his music from the first two The Godfather movies by Francis Ford Coppola. He even won an Academy Award for Best Original Score for The Godfather Part II in 1974.

Nino Rota was a very busy composer throughout his life. He wrote over 150 movie scores from the 1930s until he passed away in 1979. This means he wrote about three movie scores every year! Sometimes he wrote even more, like thirteen scores in 1954. Besides his film work, he also composed ten operas, five ballets, and many other pieces for orchestras, choirs, and small groups of instruments. He also taught music for a long time at the Liceo Musicale in Bari, Italy, where he was the director for almost 30 years.

Nino Rota's Early Life and Musical Journey

Rota at age 12

Nino Rota was born Giovanni Rota Rinaldi on December 3, 1911, in Milan, Italy. He came from a family that loved music. Nino was a child prodigy, which means he was incredibly talented at a very young age.

• When he was just 11, he wrote his first big musical piece called L'infanzia di San Giovanni Battista. It was performed in Milan and Paris in 1923.
• At 13, he composed a three-act musical comedy called Il Principe Porcaro, which was published in 1926.

He studied music at the Milan conservatory and later at the Conservatorio Santa Cecilia in Rome, graduating in 1930.

A famous conductor named Arturo Toscanini encouraged Rota to move to the United States. He lived there from 1930 to 1932. He received a scholarship to the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia. There, he learned conducting from Fritz Reiner and composition from Rosario Scalero. After returning to Milan, he studied and wrote about Renaissance music. In 1937, Rota earned a degree in literature from the University of Milan. He then started his teaching career and became the director of the Liceo Musicale in Bari from 1950 to 1978.

Nino Rota's Famous Film Scores

Nino Rota became very well known for his film music. He wrote the score for the movie The Glass Mountain in 1949. This film won several awards.

A music expert named Nicolas Slonimsky described Rota as "brilliant." He said that Rota's best and most lasting music was for movies. Rota wrote the music for many films by the Italian director Federico Fellini, from 1950 to 1979.

Rota sometimes used parts of his own older music, or even music by other composers, in his new scores. For example, he used a theme from Antonín Dvořák's Serenade for Strings in E major for a character in Fellini's movie La Strada.

• During the 1940s, Rota composed music for over 32 films.
• His work with Federico Fellini started with Lo sceicco bianco (The White Sheik) in 1952.
• They continued to work together for decades, creating a strong bond.

Fellini once said that Nino Rota was his most valuable helper. He felt they had a complete understanding. Rota had a "musical approach worthy of celestial spheres" and didn't even need to see the movie scenes to create music for them. His music came from inside him.

The connection between Fellini and Rota was so strong that at Fellini's funeral, Fellini's wife, Giulietta Masina, asked a trumpeter to play Rota's Improvviso dell'Angelo.

Rota's music for Fellini's 8½ (1963) is often seen as a key part of what makes the film so good. He also worked with Eugene Walter on a song for Fellini's Juliet of the Spirits (1965). They teamed up again for the song "What Is a Youth?" for Franco Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet.

The American Film Institute ranked Rota's music for The Godfather as one of the greatest film scores ever. He was nominated for an Academy Award for this score. However, the nomination was later taken back because it was found that Rota had used a theme from an older film he scored called Fortunella. Even though he played it differently, it was no longer considered completely original. But he later won an Oscar for his music in The Godfather Part II. Overall, Rota wrote music for more than 150 films!

Other Musical Works

Besides film scores, Nino Rota wrote many other types of music. He composed pieces for orchestras, as well as piano, chamber (small group), and choral (choir) music. Many of these works have been recorded.

After he passed away in 1979, a tribute album called Amarcord Nino Rota was released in 1981. It featured several jazz musicians who later became very famous. Some of Rota's music has also been used in more recent films, like Paranoid Park (2007) and Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story (2005). The famous composer Danny Elfman has said that Nino Rota was a big influence on his own music.

Nino Rota's Operas

Nino Rota also wrote operas, which are plays set to music.

• His 1955 opera Il cappello di paglia di Firenze (The Florentine Straw Hat) was based on a play. It was performed in the United States in 1977.
• In 2005, his opera Aladino e la lampada magica (Aladdin and the Magical Lamp) was performed in Germany and released on DVD.
• These two operas, along with many of his other orchestral and chamber pieces, are still performed regularly in Europe.

He also wrote a short opera called I due timidi (The Two Timid Ones) in 1950 for a radio show. This opera was also performed in the U.S. in 2008.

Personal Life and Passing

Nino Rota had one daughter, Nina Rota, with pianist Magda Longari.

He passed away on April 10, 1979, in Rome, at the age of 67, due to a coronary thrombosis, which is a type of heart problem.

Nino Rota's Thoughts and Memories

Federico Fellini remembered meeting Rota for the first time:

"Outside Cinecittà, I saw a funny little man waiting for the tram in the wrong spot. He seemed happy and didn't notice anything. I felt I had to wait with him... I was sure the tram would stop in its usual place, and we'd have to run for it. But he was just as sure it would stop where he was standing... To my surprise, the tram stopped right in front of us."

A critic spoke with Nino Rota when he was just eleven, before a performance of his oratorio in 1923:

Critic: "Do you like playing music?"

Rota: "Whenever I can... Is it hard to write for a newspaper?"

Critic: "It's not easy to write a good article."

Rota: "Have you come from Brussels just 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 player was rude to me."

On his friendship with Igor Stravinsky:

"Stravinsky was fun; his mind sparked with ideas. Age was no barrier - we became true friends, even though we lived far apart and met less often."

Nino Rota thinking about other people's sadness:

"When I'm creating at the piano, I tend to feel happy; but - the never-ending problem - how can we be happy when others are sad? I'd do everything I could to give everyone a moment of happiness. That's what my music is all about."

Federico Fellini on Nino Rota:

"He was someone with a rare quality that comes from intuition. Just like children, simple people, sensitive people, innocent people, he would suddenly say amazing things. As soon as he arrived, stress disappeared, everything became a happy atmosphere; the movie entered a joyful, calm, fantastic period, a new life."

More About Nino Rota's Music

Further information: List of compositions by Nino Rota and List of film scores by Nino Rota

Nino Rota's Recordings

Further information: Nino Rota discography

See also

In Spanish: Nino Rota para niños