Nino Rota
was a prolific composer; someone said when he was young, music poured out of him, and he kept it up for his whole life, writing his masterful Godfather scores in his last decade. In addition to film scores,
Rota
wrote a good deal of instrumental music and nine operas that are better known in Italy than elsewhere. There is no opera here, but
Felix Bender
(one item is conducted by
Michael Seal
) and the
WDR Funkhausorchester Koeln
offer an excellent sampling of the rest. It may come as a surprise to learn that
's association with American cinema predated
The Godfather
. His splashy score for
War and Peace
(1956) perfectly complemented
King Vidor
's lush direction and helped ensure the success of the film despite the ludicrous casting of
Henry Fonda
as Pierre Bezukhov. The director who most strongly fired
's creativity was
Federico Fellini
, represented here by the lesser-known
Orchestra Rehearsal
. Sample the "Valzerino" for a taste of how
matched
Fellini
's skewed perspective. There are several fine instrumental pieces as well, none frequently played, even though the
Concerto for strings
would make an appealing opener for any orchestral concert. As usual with
, this work and the horn concerto
Castel del Monte
and the
Harp Concerto
are packed with tunes that hang in the mind. The work of the
is idiomatically Italian enough and testifies to the deep bench in the world of regional German orchestras. An excellent single-disc taste of the underrated
. ~ James Manheim