Reynold da Silva's
Silva Records specializes in re-recordings of
film music employing the (presumably low-cost)
Prague Philharmonic Orchestra. The label has released several albums dominated by the music of Italian composer
Nino Rota --
The Godfather Trilogy 30th Anniversary 1, 2 & 3,
Romeo & Juliet,
Fellini Rota -- and this compilation draws from those earlier discs in an attempt to survey
Rota's work across two CDs. The first one is devoted to
Rota's more Hollywood-oriented writing, including music from
The Taming of the Shrew,
The Glass Mountain,
Romeo & Juliet,
Death on the Nile,
The Godfather, and
The Godfather II. This is some of
Rota's best-known work, with his love themes from
Romeo & Juliet and
The Godfather, as well as his
"Waltz" from
The Godfather, among the most readily recognizable of
film music from the 1970s.
Rota's work here is lush, melodic, and often stately. His
Romeo & Juliet music, for example, has a real Renaissance feel without being strictly authentic. The second disc draws from
Rota's extensive partnership with Italian director
Federico Fellini, and it is far more varied, with comic,
jazz, and even
circus elements to accompany everything from the humorous reminiscence of Italian youth that is
I Vitelloni to the phantasmagoric
Fellini Satyricon. A large chunk of
Rota's work is found here, though there are also omissions, notably
War and Peace and
The Leopard, scores that did not fit into the concepts for the albums from which this compilation was assembled. ~ William Ruhlmann
