布罗克斯顿评说莫里康内 MB-004-40

在我系列的第四部分中，我们回顾了一些标志性作曲家的早期职业生涯，我们来看看传奇人物埃尼奥·莫里康内在 1962 年至 1967 年间创作的另外十首乐谱，其中大部分是他早年最晦涩难懂的乐谱之一。这组评论包括几部很棒的意大利面条西部片、几部有影响力的流行迷幻乐谱、几部支持歌手演艺事业的电影配乐、他为导演马可·贝洛基奥 （Marco Bellocchio） 创作的最终配乐，以及他为恐怖导演卢西奥·富尔斯 （Lucio Fulce） 创作的第一首配乐！

In this fourth installment of my series looking at the early career of some iconic composers, we take a look at ten more scores written by the legendary Ennio Morricone between 1962 and 1967, most of which are among the most obscure of his early years. This group of reviews includes a couple of great spaghetti westerns, several influential pop-psychedelia scores, several lounge music scores accompanying movies bolstering the acting careers of singers, his final score for director Marco Bellocchio, and his first score for horror director Lucio Fulce!

LA CUCCAGNA [A GIRL AND A MILLION] (1962)

La Cuccagna, also known as A Girl And A Million, is a comedy-drama written and directed by Luciano Salce, one of Morricone’s earliest filmmaking friends and collaborators. The film stars Donatella Turri as Rossella, a beautiful young girl from a working class family, who finds out that – despite her good looks and charm – searching for a job is a difficult business. It’s a film which uses 1960s Italian ‘dolce vita’ sensibilities to tell a harsh story about the social and economic issues that plagued Italy in the 1960s, but it’s almost forgotten today. La Cuccagna was the fifth or sixth score in Morricone’s career, written when he was just 33.

The only two pieces of music ever released from La Cuccagna are “Il Cortile” and “Il Ritorno a Casa,” both of which could be found on a now long-out-of-print 45RPM vinyl EP released by RCA Records Europe. The first, “Il Cortile,” is a sprightly, childish little piece for stand-up piano, shrill woodwinds, and lithe strings, that captures a sense of innocent urban idyll. The second, “Il Ritorno a Casa,” is initially a little more introspective, with darkly-hued strings and an occasional harmonica creating a sense of tension. Eventually an acoustic guitar joins the mix, and it slowly becomes a more traditionally orchestral, a warm but bittersweet melody that has an underlying sense of tragedy. Some of the orchestral phrasings remind me of Nino Rota’s writing for traditional writing for Fellini, and by the end it is quite lovely.

In the absence of any sort of fuller score release, the only place these cues are available to listen to is on YouTube, but unfortunately the first piece is disrupted by dialogue tracks and sound effects from the film, including women singing, assorted kitchen noises, children laughing, and an amateur vocal choir. However the second piece is well worth listening to; it’s a trivial, unimportant work by Morricone standards, but it’s still fascinating from a historical perspective to see where it all began.

Track Listing: 1. Il Cortile (3:04), 2. Il Ritorno a Casa (2:23). RCA Records PM45 3129, 05 minutes 27 seconds.