Nino Rota: La Strada; Il Gattopardo; Concerto Soirée (2005)
Benedetto Lupo, piano; Orquesta Ciudad de Granada; Josep Pons, conductor
EAC | FLAC | Tracks (Cue&Log) ~ 248 Mb | Mp3 (CBR320) ~ 147 Mb | Scans ~ 88 Mb
Classical, Film Music | Label: Harmonia Mundi | # HMC 901864 | Time: 01:04:13
Benedetto Lupo, piano; Orquesta Ciudad de Granada; Josep Pons, conductor
EAC | FLAC | Tracks (Cue&Log) ~ 248 Mb | Mp3 (CBR320) ~ 147 Mb | Scans ~ 88 Mb
Classical, Film Music | Label: Harmonia Mundi | # HMC 901864 | Time: 01:04:13
It's great to see the music of Nino Rota getting so much attention. He was a wonderful composer, and the ballet suite from La strada may be his orchestral masterpiece (just a quick note: the French language title identifies this as a suite from the eponymous film; it is in fact the more familiar arrangement of the later ballet). There are now four competitive recordings of this piece, the least interesting of which is on Chandos with the Teatro Massimo orchestra: not bad, but not as well played or recorded as either Muti's slightly stiff version with the excellent La Scala forces, or Atma's brilliant recent release featuring the Greater Montréal Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra under Yannick Nézet-Séguin. All of the couplings differ in various ways, though Muti also has the dances from Il gattopardo (The Leopard).