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Nino Rota
(Italy, 1911–1979)

Concerto for Harp and Orchestra
Concerto for Bassoon and Orchestra
Castel del Monte (Ballad for Horn and Orchestra)
Concerto for Trombone and Orchestra

This recording brings together four of Rota's compositions for solo instrument and orchestra. The Concerto for Harp and Orchestra, written in 1947, reveals the composer's mastery of all the instrument's expressive resources and demonstrates him as an outstandingly subtle orchestrator.

The Concerto for Bassoon and Orchestra was written in 1974-7. In this work, which has a rather unusual structure (the three movements are Toccata, Recitativo and Tema e Variazioni), passages of a basically serene, or at times exuberant, nature alternate with others that are more pensive and melancholy. The result is a perfect example of Rota's characteristic determination to mask the complexity and originality of his construction with gestures that are apparently natural and spontaneous.

The title of Rota's Ballad for Horn and Orchestra, Castel del Monte (1974), refers to the famous Italian thirteenth-century castle built by the emporer Frederick II near Andria in Apulia. Resonances of Wagner and Prokofiev may be detected in the work.

The Concerto for Trombone and Orchestra, written in 1966, is cast in the customary three movements and scored for an orchestra of reduced size. The ending, a festive Allegro moderato, simply bursts with a sense of joie de vivre almost unique in twentieth-century European music.