I have long been a fan of Italian film music of the 60’s and 70’s. Rota was truely one of the most important and influential composers of his generation, the generation that would influence such greats as Ennio Morricone, Bruno Nicolai and many others. Rota of course (like many other film composers) had a “Classical Music” side to his work. I had a chance to chat with conductor Enrico Bronzi about his disc of Rota Concertos on the Concerto label.

Enrico, can you tell us a little bit about the Rota project? What inspired you to make this recording? Why these particular compositions?
For a while now I have been looking for an opportunity to study the Concerto n. 2 for cello. So when the Musici di Parma asked me to join them in a project regarding Rota, naturally my reaction was to join them immediately. This recording brings together all aspects of my life as a musician: chamber music, work as a soloist and conducting.

Can you describe for us where Nino Rota fits in the Italian Music Landscape (historically speaking)?
Rota’s music is like breathing Italian air. His vocation for melody originates in the lyric traditions of my hometown. Often his music is tinged with a typically Mediterranean mood. It can be playful: in it he frequently alludes to particular sounds, such as a band from southern Italy or the circus. However, he does know where the limits lie and it is done with a gentlemanliness, which keeps everything from becoming mere imitation. And this sense of ‘moderation in all things’ is part of the education of that refined aristocrat from the south, which is a part of the foundations of our culture.

What do you see as being Rota’s most important compositions outside of the film works? What makes these pieces important?
Rota’s concert music is contiguous with his music for film. It is sophisticated music that has absorbed all of the lessons of European music. And yet it is not music that feigns solemnity or zeal. When Morricone writes ‘serious’ music, he does it disowning the poetry of his film music. Rota, on the other hand, just enlarges and reinforces the poetic structure of his pieces. We never get the impression that the joy exuding from his enormous melodic streak is running out.

What would you like this recording you’ve made to achieve both in Italy and abroad?
I hope this recording will be considered a step toward rediscovering this great composer’s recorded music. Many have begun to re-evaluate all angles of his music and I believe the public will not have to work at all to appreciate him. I am thinking of some rather silly and useless criticisms leveled at Poulenc. In the end the coherence of these authors is worth more than an aesthetic credo or the poorly placed problems regarding the avant-garde. Let it be understood I am a big fan of a wide variety of very different composers, such as Zimmermann, Ligeti, Kurtag. Our age is a Tower of Babel of different and diverse languages. But if we know how to listen we will be able to understand the beauty that can be found in opposites.

While some people in America are familiar with Rota’s film music, by and large his “Classical Compositions” still remain somewhat obscure (when speaking in terms of the “Classical mainstream”), why do you think this is?
For many years, in Europe, there was, basically, a kind of censorship regarding this composer who was so far removed from any of the beacons of the avant-garde in the last century. Given that 20th century American music is not so very different from Rota’s aesthetic cannons, I think that, in the United States, he could be warmly welcomed. For people who enjoy Copland or Bernstein, admiring Rota’s spontaneous and luminous music should come naturally.

Photo: Mark Dellas

I am a musician. I have known that simple fact since my seventh birthday, when I wrapped my arms around the little guitar that had been a gift from my father, when I breathed the dusky fragrance of wood and varnish, when I touched the grainy fingerboard that would become my personal road to enchantment. Despite challenges, I have never had one moment of regret about that calling, nor a second of doubt about the vital role that music plays in the world around us. As a conductor, I have witnessed thousands of audiences – literally millions of listeners – come to the concert hall and leave, two hours later, in a place they would never have been able to imagine when they arrived frazzled and distracted, earlier that evening.

I feel a certain conflict of emotions as I write this essay- gratitude certainly, for being given this opportunity to talk about the importance of the art form, but also a profound sorrow that classical music somehow finds itself desperately in need of advocates. Why should that be especially so in troubled economic times? We feel betrayed perhaps by Wall Street greed, by ineffectual governance, by political leadership. But music has never betrayed us, never let us down. It constantly gives back to us, as a boundlessly beautiful repository of the past or a vibrant mirror of our current society. The need for music is not learned – it is “hard-wired” into our being. Even infants respond to it and understand it. As we grow, our exposure to music sharpens our brains, awakens a heightened sense of individual awareness, helps us develop an appreciation for beauty and value.

The ancient Greeks in their extraordinarily sophisticated society understood the tremendous power of music. Plato himself espoused careful planning of the number of hours young people should listen to music in certain keys – so powerful was the influence of each key that it would have strong affects on the long-term personality and character of the young listeners! In my many visits to schools, I have observed that the musicians in the orchestra, band, or chorus are most often the students on the dean’s list, on the student council, in clubs and after-school activities and are often involved in community service as well. A strange coincidence? I don’t think so – I am convinced that the making of music teaches them the skills – discipline, patience, respect and dedication – that enable them to succeed in all their endeavors.

We remain for all of our lives extremely sensitive to that power of music, whether or not we choose to (or even can) articulate that power. I have always been fond of Garrison Keillor’s words: “An orchestra concert is where people go to find their souls. Having worked so hard to lose them, people come and sit in the dark under the spell of music and are reminded of their humanity”. What happens? That room full of people – all with different issues on their minds – experiences together a force that we can never fully explain. Listening, our sense of time changes, our focus sharpens, our problems fade, our priorities shift.

We all know that the “music business” has a strong positive affect on our economy. Facts and figures will bear out the statement that concerts bring many times their cost back to the community. But that is truly besides the point. Music has a profound affect on our psyche, our understanding of ourselves, our view of a world grown astonishingly small. In a global community where solutions will be found through creativity, ingenuity and imagination, music holds the key to nurturing the values that will help us find answers to seemingly insurmountable challenges.

Why do we need music as a nation, as citizens of the United States? There are those that would claim that Americans are not an artistic people. I could not disagree more strongly. Americans invented film, jazz, modern dance, musical theater, country music, abstract impressionism. We are an expressive, innovative, imaginative – even audacious people. Our art echoes our essential American-ness – our willingness to experiment and to take risks, our desire to share and borrow and change, our egalitarianism, our inclusiveness, our endless curiosity and humor. This American art echoes every culture in the world, and has spread to the furthest reaches of the globe. The arts are how we explain ourselves and come to know ourselves. They are woven into the very fabric of our complicated democracy and into the lives of our people. They are, in a very real way, the sum of our collective soul. The American orchestra is at the center of the arts in our country, and the cornerstone of our cultural society. Orchestras preserve our heritage, foster diversity, encourage creativity, and stand as a shining paradigm for excellence.

What do we remember and value from great civilizations of the past? Certainly it is not their business plans, their economic challenges, their financial success; not their wars, their fleeting conquests, their eventual collapse. We remember the beautiful legacy of their artistic life – the paintings, poetry, architecture, music, gleaming as brightly centuries after their creation, still able to move and touch us. Through their art, we realize that these long-dead creatures were really not so very different from us, filling their small parcel of life with as much beauty as they could. What will our great-grandchildren inherit from us? What will they remember? Will the economic recession of the early 21st century color their world? Or will the next century – most probably more complex and more intense than ours – still look to the nobility in the arts as a touchstone for what is truly valuable?

In times of economic difficulty, the arts, rather than languishing as a discretionary luxury, becomes more vital to the human condition. Through the arts, we honor our past, celebrate our present and dream our future. The very best of who we are is inherent in the arts, and the arts are at the core of the continual re-invigoration of our humanity.

… Those who heard the Mozart did better on the test than those who hadn’t. The “effect” was apparently temporary but never mind. Eventually, parents were playing Mozart for their tots in an effort to turn them into geniuses…

These often include programmatic pieces (”The Flight of the Bumblebee,” “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” “Danse Macabre,” “Carnival of the Animals”) that tell stories through music. Naxos offers a fine series of recordings called “Listen, Learn and Grow” that includes many such pieces…

… These Naxos discs feature the same music that novice listeners have always enjoyed, music that, in former times, was the staple of Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops, or that served as soundtracks for Bugs Bunny and Tom and Jerry…

Read more.

I have not been exposed to much by way of Sir Charles Villiers Stanford (1852-1924), whose First Symphony (1876) has all the earmarks of the Dvorak style…

Violins and violas com sordino open the meditative proceedings, again all highly reminiscent of Dvorak’s temper…

… An appealing lyric piece, the Clarinet Concerto alternates vivacious figures with a sense of repose, and the last movement makes several allusions to the tumbler’s antics…

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This podcast looks at a new CD of his orchestral music, including the Toy Symphony.

Album details…
Catalogue No.: Naxos 8.570499

Subscribe to Podcast: Enhanced* | Regular | iTunes Store
Download this Episode: AAC* | MP3

* enhanced version of the podcast contains chapter markers and cover art.

At the vanguard of this movement of crowdsourcing music and putting the fans in control is Nettwerk Music, a record label and band management service in Vancouver, BC… 

Where will all this be in five years, and will we be ready for it?’ There was a conscious decision made at that meeting to get out of the physical music business…

There’s a risk and reward to that. If an artist is signed to a major label, then the manager has no risk, but then you’re only getting a commission from publishing and master royalties combined …

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Glenn Gould, the legendary and eccentric Canadian pianist, was the most articulate proponent of a vision of the future in which recordings would replace live performance…

… thanks in large part to the pioneering strategy of the Naxos label, today’s public is blessed with an inexhaustible archive of recorded performances…

… The real attraction of classical music is the power and sensuality of the live sounds. The excitement that ensues from the unpredictability and drama of live performance is comparable to watching spectator sports…

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New methods for linking music and listeners are materializing within the industry. Our salute this month goes to the Naxos music label…

… I hope I am stirring your interest up for the ‘Naxos Newsletter’. It is easy to subscribe. Just visit www.naxos.com and go to the bottom of their web page where the golden tab says ‘Newsletter Subscription’…

… their comprehensive approach sets them aside as a great citizen and promoter of our art form. It is educational and informative beyond expectation. The introduction of the ‘Newsletter’ is an example of how Naxos is setting the pace and standard for the industry…

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At the same time, sound quality is important to classical music collectors and most are not really satisfied with heavily compressed files. Higher-quality files are much bigger and are more difficult to download…

… We made our entire catalog available for streaming online, free, in 1996 so that people could listen to our recordings before purchasing them…

If the industry had gotten together in the late-1990s and come up with a concept like iTunes, it could have avoided most of the piracy problems it has been experiencing in recent years…

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Tracks available on Naxos Music Library starting today.