This classic and memorable romantic theme from the film Franco Zefferelli’s Romeo and Juliet score was composed and conducted by the Italian composer Nino Rota. I don’t know how I came into possession of this music, but I imagine it was after downloading a mega-compilation of classical music. I’m sure grateful I am able to hear this exquisite piece in my collection. I don’t believe I have seen this movie version of the Shakespearean play, but at least the music reflects the tragic passion of the famous story. The movie has a very high audience score of 7.6 on IMDB.
Nino Roto (image left) has a remarkable film score acumen. Apart from his two Shakespeare screen adaptions, he is known for the music for films of Federico Fellini and for the first two installments of Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather trilogy, earning the Academy Award for Best Original Score for The Godfather Part II (1974). He wrote more than 150 scores for Italian and international productions from the 1930s until his death in 1979 — an average of three scores each year over a 46-year period.
Alongside this great body of film work, he composed ten operas, five ballets and dozens of other orchestral, choral and chamber works, the best known being his string concerto. Rota was born Giovanni Rota Rinaldi on 3 December 1911, into a musical family in Milan, Italy. Rota was a renowned child prodigy — his first oratorio, L’infanzia di San Giovanni Battista, was written at age 11 and performed in Milan and Paris as early as 1923; his three-act lyrical comedy after Hans Christian Andersen, Il Principe Porcaro, was composed when he was just 13 and published in 1926.
References:
1. Romeo and Juliet (1968 film soundtrack) – Wikipedia
“The more I live, the more I learn. The more I learn, the more I realize, the less I know.”- Michel Legrand
Observation Blogger 
Lovely…
Very nice!
I saw this film as a young teenager when it came out and LOVED it! Nino Rota’s musical score is one of the most beautiful ever composed for any film, and listening to this piece now covers me in goosebumps.
Lucky you! I was surprised to read how high the audience opinion of this movie is and yet I haven’t seen it! And I have no way knowing how I will ever get to see it.
This piece also gave me goosebumps Jeff. Nino Rota is obviously a genius; the likes of which we are unlikely to hear of again. Thanks a lot for sharing.