The artistic complicity between Federico Fellini and Nino Rota is so legendary that images from Eight and a Half, La Dolce Vita and Casanova flash before our eyes, indissociable from the composer’s name. 

In this programme, the fiery Italian charmer is invoked through his collaborator’s scores—a superb piano Suite escorted by three fascinating chamber works: Lo Spiritismo nella vecchia casa, variations for solo clarinet, adapted from stage music for a play by the same name by poet and playwright Ugo Betti; Piccola Offerta Musicale (1943), titled in homage to Bach but dedicated to the great Alfredo Casella, a piece with hints of almost Ravelian tones and spirituality, despite its neoclassical rigour; and lastly Nonet, filled with virtuoso liveliness, whose five movements show the maestria with which Nino Rota paired the best of solid classical training with astonishing cinematographic precision.