The most famous composer you've never heard of

The PostClassical Ensemble is making you an offer you can’t refuse.

Next week, the group will perform a pair of concerts in Washington, D.C, and Baltimore featuring the orchestral works of the most famous composer you’ve never heard of — Nino Rota, the Academy Award-winning magician behind the scores for “The Godfather” parts 1 and 2 and a slew of films directed by Federico Fellini.

In addition to his iconic film scores, Rota also composed a treasure trove of ballets, operas and symphonic works.

These seldom-performed classical compositions are every bit as evocative and compelling as Rota’s famous film scores, according to experts — a conclusion that audiences can explore at two performances of “Beyond ‘The Godfather’: the Concert Music of Nino Rota.”

“I always say that the great film composers are the victims of their own success,” said Angel Gil-Ordóñez, the Ensemble’s music director.

“Nino Rota was incredibly prolific. He composed over 150 film scores, but he also wrote more than 80 orchestral pieces and many ballets and ten operas. But his concert music isn’t performed very often.”

The PostClassical program will include 40 minutes of Rota’s concert music and 20 minutes of his scores from such films as Fellini’s “Le Dolce Vita,” Franco Zeffirelli’s “Romeo and Juliet” — and of course “The Godfather.”

The concert music includes Rota’s “Concerto for Strings,” selections from his ballet “Le Moliére imaginaire” and his remarkable “Castel del Monte” for French horn and orchestra inspired by the medieval 13th-century castle in southeast Italy.

“Rota manages to capture the essence of the instruments he wrote for. I’ve listened to his harp concerto and his bassoon concerto, and it’s kind of uncanny,” said Claudia Gorbman, professor emerita of film studies at the University of Washington Tacoma.

”The opening of his piece for the French horn sounds like it is issuing from some hunting party deep in the forest.”

Gorbman is the author of the 1974 book “Unheard Melodies: Narrative Film Music.”

Rota, born into a well-to-do family from Milan, began composing at age 8 and was hailed by journalists of that era as a child prodigy. He even was compared to Mozart.

‘They are that catchy’

From his earliest days, Gorbman said, Rota’s genius for melody was unmistakable.

For example, just a few bars of “The Godfather’s” opening theme immediately transports viewers to New York’s organized crime underground circa 1945.

The solo trumpet draws listeners in with its melancholy, haunting melody. But something sickly sweet lurks just beneath that simple surface, unmistakable echoes of disease and decay.

In less than four minutes, Rota’s score has told the audience everything it needs to know about the gangster Vito Corleone.

“I find myself singing his melodies in the bathtub,” Gorbman said.

”They are that catchy. Rota was a tonal composer mostly, but the harmony wanders all over the place. There is so much imagination in how he constructs each piece. That is what really impresses and delights me about his music.”

Curiously for a 20th-century composer — Rota was born in 1911 — very little is known about his personal life.

He never married. Rota’s biographer, Richard Dyer, has a hunch that the composer was gay, but if Rota had love relationships, he kept them to himself. He had one child, a daughter, with whom he never communicated, according to Gil-Ordóñez.

Biographers, desperate for a humanizing anecdote, resort to discussing his work habits.

“One thing he was legendary for was his facility for writing music,” Gil-Ordóñez said.

”Once he was on his way to Milan to meet a film director, and he had forgotten that he was supposed to compose a score. So Rota wrote enough music to present to the director while he was on the train. In about 20 minutes.”

Gorbman said she’s fascinated by how Rota inverts his listeners’ expectations. The trumpet, for instance, is often thought of as an instrument that delivers fanfare or is used to play military themes. Yet in “The Godfather Waltz” it is positively plaintive.

Similarly, composers typically exploit the French horn’s naturally bold, brassy sound.

”But in ‘Castel del Monte’ he asks it to play in such a soft register,” Gorbman said.

‘Too delicious to export’

She compared Rota’s classical compositions to “regional wines too delicious to export” and thinks they would be more appreciated today if Rota had never ventured into film.

“Up until the 1990s, being a film composer was looked down on by the rest of the music world,” Gorbman said.

”Film composers were considered hacks, even though some marvelous and extremely memorable music is imprinted on our minds. His concert works have long remained a well-kept secret outside of Italy.”

Next week‘s concerts will attempt to rectify that historic injustice. But Gil-Ordóñez said he hopes they will also encourage concertgoers to fully experience the film scores — perhaps for the first time.

In any movie, the score is subordinated to the director’s narrative needs, he said, and is often truncated or distorted to convey critical information about the characters or plot. It runs as a background track.

During the PostClassical concerts, in contrast, the music will be the main event.

“We are going to try to pry people away from their images of ‘The Godfather,’ ” Gil-Ordóñez said. “I want people to realize for the first time that there is an accordion involved and a mandolin and a guitar.

”Finally, you will get to hear this music in its full splendor.”

If You Go

“Beyond ‘The Godfather’: the Concert Music of Nino Rota” will be performed at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, 2700 F St. NW, Washington. Tickets cost $45 to $69. The concert will repeat at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Baltimore Museum of Art at North Charles and 31st Streets. Tickets cost $43-$49. For details, visit postclassical.com.