I Can't Get 'A Time For Us' Out Of My Head!

Today, I was doing my volunteer work for Garden Grove's Meals on Wheels program and upon walking into the Senior Center to drop off my empty cooler, I was surprised to hear music I had not heard in years.  Every Monday a pianist comes to play a wide variety of slow, atmospheric tunes - like something you'd hear in the background at Nieman Marcus - but never in the three years I've been delivering meals on Monday's have I heard the pianist play 'A Time For Us'.  Well, I just stopped walking and stood to wait for him to finish as if I had just happened into a concert at the Hollywood Bowl.

Before this morning, I cannot remember the last time I heard Nino Rota's romantically devastating theme for the 1968 film version of Romeo and Juliet, a brilliant film that I've seen many times; the first being in my 7th grade English class.  The best days at school were always the days we watched movies in class but when the movies were actually enjoyable, it was the cherry.  I remember being just as enthralled with the score as I was with the film.  In fact, I had become so obsessed in my search for this piece of music, it took me weeks to eventually find it on a 1968 Billboard compilation CD.  (You have to think back before the internet, if you're old enough, to a time when it took more effort than just flipping open your laptop or pushing the Safari App button on your iPad to find information).  Of course, it would have helped if I knew what the title of the score was called or who the composer was rather than just approaching music store employees with Bauhaus t-shirts, saying, "You know, that theme from Romeo and Juliet".

Anyway, here it is with some clips from the 1968 film Romeo and Juliet (in my opinion, the best film version):

Of course, I must also give a little background about the Milan-born Italian composer Nino Rota, who I believe was the catalyst to my obsession for film scores beyond John Williams.  Nino was also notable for the films scores of Federico Fellini and Luchino Visconti.  He also composed the music for the first two films of Francis Ford Coppola's Godfather trilogy, receiving the Academy Award for Best Original Score for The Godfather Part II (1974).

Grazie mille, signor Rota.