Nino Rota’s Nonetto

Of all the Italian composer’s chamber works, the Nonetto is perhaps the most fulfilling. It is certainly the most representative of his skill in the medium – indeed it’s something of a ‘summing up’ of just about everything he’d brought to bear in his career to that point. That point being 1977, just a couple of years before his death. Rota’s five-movement work is meticulous, melodic and unrelenting, and it occupied him for the longest time. It was actually commissioned in the late 1950s by Czech Nonet, though the ensemble never got the opportunity to play it.