During his long career, Rota was an extraordinarily prolific composer, especially of music for the cinema. 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, and in his most productive period from the late 1940s to the mid-1950s he wrote as many as ten scores every year, and sometimes more, with a remarkable thirteen film scores to his credit in 1954. 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. He also composed the music for many theatre productions by Visconti, Zeffirelli and Eduardo De Filippo as well as maintaining a long teaching career at the Liceo Musicale in Bari, Italy, where he was the director for almost 30 years.
Rota was born Giovanni Rota Rinaldi on 3 December 1911, into a musical family in Milan. 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. He studied at the Milan conservatory there under Giacomo Orefice and then undertook serious study of composition under Ildebrando Pizzetti and Alfredo Casella at the Santa Cecilia Academy in Rome, graduating in 1930.
Encouraged by Arturo Toscanini, Rota moved to the United States where he lived from 1930 to 1932. He won a scholarship to the Curtis Institute of Philadelphia, where he was taught conducting by Fritz Reiner and had Rosario Scalero as an instructor in composition. Returning to Milan, he wrote a thesis on the Renaissance composer Gioseffo Zarlino. Rota earned a degree in literature from the University of Milan, graduating in 1937, and began a teaching career that led to the directorship of the Liceo Musicale in Bari, a title he held from 1950 until 1978.
Rota had one daughter, Nina Rota, from a relationship with pianist Magda Longari. He died, age 67, from a coronary thrombosis in Rome.
I Have But One Heart
Nino Rota Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
I have but one heart to share with you,
I have but one dream that I can cling to,
You are the one dream I pray comes true.
My darling, until I saw you, I never felt this way,
And nobody else before you, ever has heard me say,
You are my one love, my life I live for you,
I have but one heart to give to you.
Dicimo o mari, facimu l'amore,
A curi a curi che ci passa,
Ca u mare parla e na' carezza,
Ma a tia la brezza, fina murir.
You are my one love, my love I live for you,
I have but one heart to give to you.
Let us tell the sea that we are making love,
Heart to heart till the end of time,
Because the sea whispers and caresses us,
So does the breeze till the time we die.
The lyrics to Nino Rota's song, "I Have But One Heart," speak of the devotion and love of the singer towards their beloved. The opening lines, "I have but one heart, this heart I bring you, I have but one heart to share with you," convey the singer's desire to give the entirety of their heart to their loved one. The following line, "I have but one dream that I can cling to, You are the one dream I pray comes true," emphasizes the importance of the love between the two persons, as it is the singer's only dream.
The second stanza, "My darling, until I saw you, I never felt this way, And nobody else before you, ever has heard me say, You are my one love, my life I live for you, I have but one heart to give to you," carries the message of how love can transform a person's life, as the singer claims to have never felt this way before meeting their beloved. The third stanza, which is partly in Sicilian dialect, adds a layer of intimacy to the lyrics. It speaks of making love by the sea, and how the natural elements, the sea, and the breeze also play a part in the couple's love story.
Overall, the lyrics to "I Have But One Heart" are a beautiful declaration of love, describing the strength and depth of the singer's devotion to their loved one, and how that love is the only thing that matters.
Line by Line Meaning
I have but one heart, this heart I bring you,
I only have one heart, and it belongs to you.
I have but one heart to share with you,
I am willing to share my heart with you.
I have but one dream that I can cling to,
I have one dream that gives me hope.
You are the one dream I pray comes true.
You are the dream I hope will come true.
My darling, until I saw you, I never felt this way,
Until I met you, I had never felt this kind of love before.
And nobody else before you, ever has heard me say,
I have never expressed my love to anyone else before you.
You are my one love, my life I live for you,
You are the only love of my life, and I will live for you.
I have but one heart to give to you.
I have only one heart, and I want to give it to you.
Let us tell the sea that we are making love,
We should share our love with the sea.
Heart to heart till the end of time,
Our hearts beat as one, forever.
Because the sea whispers and caresses us,
The sea whispers to us, caressing our souls.
So does the breeze till the time we die.
And the breeze embraces us until death.
Lyrics © Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
Written by: JOHNNY FARROW, MARTY SYMES
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind