There was more to Nino Rota than his famous film scores. The point is persuasively–and repeatedly–made by Decca and The Orchestra Giuseppe Verdi di Milano in their ongoing compendium of the the composer’s varied works. Still, the series’ fourth installment offers fresh surprises: by demonstrating that Rota was also a gifted composer of sacred music. The two previously unrecorded oratorios that bookend this double disc will tempt Rota completists. But one-off buyers may want to choose another disc in the series, in which the content tends to be more consistently engaging.
The entire first disc is allotted to a live concert recording of the oratorio Mysterium (more a cantata than an oratorio, as critic Paolo Isotta’s sleeve-notes point out, considering its Scriptures-based text contains nothing in the way of narration). This is not the most synthetic of works, but there are striking moments along the way, and music that explores the murkier end of the color spectrum features some heady Duruflé-like washes of sound. La Verdi’s adult choir is on spine-tinglingly resolute form (a nice contrast to the purer sound achieved by the children’s choir), and bass Gianluca Buratto, the standout soloist, is affecting in the rapturous lento-section solo. The orchestra sounds incisive and game, even despite this first disc’s slightly muddy recording quality.
Closing the session-recorded second disc, Il Natale degli innocenti (a bona fide oratorio this time) arouses associations with Britten’s Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo for the sunny burst we get in the piano (plus organ and chimes) accompaniment. Here, tenor Davide Giusti (the narrator) sings with an attractive, translucent tone, and soprano Silvia Colombini negotiates her smaller role well. Salmo VI, Salmo 99, and Tota pulchra es, conservatory exercises for organ and solo voices, sound more anonymous. But in the opening C’era una volta nella grotta, the children’s chorus–whose unison melody weaves mysteriously into a misty F minor backdrop comprising quasi-medieval open fifths and a solemnly strumming guitar–casts a powerful atmosphere. In Ave Maria (the successive work) the same voices soar to yet greater heights.
