El Greco is an Italian drama biopic directed by Luciano Salce which tells the life story of master painter Doménikos Theotokópoulos, better known as El Greco, who created multiple masterpieces of renaissance art during the late 16th century. The film stars Mel Ferrer in the title role, with supporting performances by Rosanna Schiaffino and Adolfo Celi, and specifically concentrates on the period of El Greco’s life when he was based in Toledo, Spain, receiving commissions from King Philip II.

The score’s spectacular opening sequence is “Exultate Deo,” a celebratory, resounding fanfare for voices, trumpets, and piano chords, which bookends a stirring, elegantly romantic theme for strings and soft chorus worthy of a sweeping historical drama like this. Morricone’s allows his main to develop throughout the score, offering several beautiful variations, including the tender “Invocazione,” the restrained “Angoscia a Ricerca,” and the stunningly beautiful “Follia e Amore,” the latter of which represents the romantic relationship between El Greco and his beloved Jeronima de las Cuevas.

There’s also a great real of quite flamboyant renaissance-inspired festival music that captures the pageantry and artistic progressiveness of Europe during the period, some liturgical church music for pipe organ (“Rituale”), and even something approaching an action cue in “Per Archi,” which features some furious string writing.

Words to watch: Trumpet, Piano, Renaissance-style holiday music, Organ music

Exultate Deo (02:20)

Invocazione （03:12）

Angoscia e ricerca (02:40)

Follia e amore (02:38)

A very important and critically acclaimed Italian neo-realist war film, The Battle of Algiers was documentary specialist Gillo Pontecorvo’s first success at making narrative films; it told the story of the war between France and Algeria in the late 1950s and early 60s, when Algerian separatists were fighting for independence, and waged a guerrilla war against the French government in the streets of that country’s cities. The film starred Jean Martin as Coloniel Mathieu, the head of the French battalion in Algiers, and Saadi Yacef as Djafar, the leader of the group of insurgents. The film was enormously successful, receiving Academy Award nominations for Best Screenplay, Best Director, and Best Foreign Language Film.

Much of the film is scored naturalistically with traditional North African drumming and manipulated sound effects designed by director Pontecorvo himself, but Morricone did write around 40 minutes of traditional score, His most notable contribution is the stark, militaristic main title theme, “Algeri 1 Novembre 1954,” an aggressive and slightly chaotic piece that pits a relentless snare drum tattoo against rolling pianos, martial trumpets, and intensely rendered woodwinds, capturing the danger and hostility that spilled over from the souks and casbahs and into the forefront of Algerian society at that time.

Words to watch: Pontecorvo, Main theme of militarism, martial arts trumpet, fiercely rendered woodwind instruments

Algeri: 1 novembre 1954 (02:26)

Un Uomo a Metà is an Italian drama film directed by Vittorio de Seta, which stars Jacques Perrin as Michele, a failed writer who, while incarcerated in a mental health clinic, looks back on his life to try to find the origin of his mental problems, including his controlling mother (Lea Padovani), his selfish brother (Gianni Garko), and his numerous failed relationships with women. The film was a critical success, with Perrin winning the Best Actor award for his performance during the 1966 Venice Film Festival.

Morricone’s score for Un Uomo a Metà comprises just one single piece, a 23-minute composition entitled Requiem Per Un Destino, which explores Michele’s damaged psyche and troubled past through a series of expressive, impressionistic orchestral and choral passages, usually written for overlapping layers of strings. One sequence – “Accettare, Comprende, Quest il Senso, il Segreto” – is especially noteworthy for the way the different parts of the string section shift against each other, sometimes tonally beautiful, sometimes uncomfortably dissonant.

Words to watch: expressive impressionistic orchestral. Chorus, the way the different parts of the string section move around each other

Requiem per un destino (23"05")

Accettare, comprendere, questo il senso, il segreto (03:41)

One of the most popular spaghetti westerns of the 1960s, Navajo Joe was directed by Sergio Corbucci and stars a young Burt Reynolds as the titular character, a Native American warrior on a quest or vengeance after his tribe is massacred by a gang of white outlaws led by the ruthless Duncan. Having tracked the gang to a town, Esperanza, Joe finds out about Duncan’s plan to hijack a train full of money, and offers to protect the townspeople by killing Duncan and his men; however, Joe faces a great deal opposition from the residents, especially the town doctor Lynne, who convinces everyone not to trust a ‘redskin,’ and who is secretly in league with Duncan for a share of the money.

Ennio Morricone’s main thematic idea is one of his most famous –  a wild, insanely creative march for strings, electric guitar, and tribal percussion, enlivened by some utterly bonkers vocal effects including shouting, pseudo-Gospel wailing, literal screaming, and a choir chanting both Navajo Joe’s name, and many of his positive characteristics (ever so bold, and so on). The second most important piece is the stark, imposing “A Silhouette of Doom,” which acts as a recurring motif for Duncan and his men, and  layers low-end piano clusters against bold timpani strikes, severe trumpet whole notes, searching strings, screeching woodwinds, and more of those iconic vocals.

These two themes dominate the score, with multiple variations of both ideas throughout (the dreamily slow version in “Joe’s Departure” is interesting), but other pieces stop the score from becoming monotonous: on the one hand, there are a few cues of rambunctious saloon music featuring honky-tonk pianos and banjos, while on the other hand you get a track like the beautifully introspective and calming “The Demise of Father Rattinan” with it’s sensitive acoustic guitars, lyrical oboe, and cooing vocals.

After many years of incomplete and inconsistent releases, the complete score for Navajo Joe was released in 2007 by producer Lukas Kendall on his Film Score Monthly label, featuring cleaned-up sound, a more sensible running order, and handsome production values including liner notes from Italian film music expert John Bender and film director Jim Wynorski.

Words to watch: Salon music, Strings, electric guitar, tribal percussion, vocals, pseudo-gospel wail, timpani, trumpet, woodwinds, bar piano, banjo, oboe

TITOLI DI TESTA-NAVAJO JOE

Another acclaimed spaghetti western, La Resa dei Conti was directed by Sergio Sollima and starred Lee Van Cleef as ageing bounty hunter Jonathan Corbett, who is tasked by a railroad tycoon named Brokston to capture and/or kill Mexican bandito Cuchillo, who has been accused of raping and murdering a 12-year-old girl. However, Corbett is not as reliable as he used to be, and Cuchillo evades him, forcing Brokston – who has stakes his future political career on Cuchillo capture – to send a second bounty hunter to take out Cuchillo and, if necessary, Corbett as well. The film co-starred Walter Barnes, Tomas Milian, and Gérard Herter, and was acclaimed by film critics such as Leonard Maltin as one of the finest spaghetti westerns, second only to Sergio Leone’s Dollars Trilogy.

Morricone’s score is another one of his experimental, unusual compositions for the genre, which combined traditional action scoring with a number of unique and often quite bizarre sounds and arrangements. The main title cue “La Caccia,” for example. begins with what I can only describe as ‘the sounds of someone making squawking bird noises, and someone rubbing wet fingers across a window,’ but it slowly develops into a superbly adventurous main theme with a resounding trumpet chorus , relentless horse-gallop percussion, and an angelic female soprano vocal.

As one of the most popular western scores, the score for The Big Gundown has been released multiple times. The best presentation of the complete score is probably the one released by GDM Music in 2012, which features more than 50 minutes of music, including the two performances of the original song “Run Man Run” performed by vocalist Christy with Alessandro Alessandroni’s choir I Cantori Moderni, and conducted by Bruno Nicolai.

Words to watch: Trumpet,horse-gallop percussion, soprano

Run Man Run (Titoli di Testa)

La Resa dei Conti (La Caccia)

Dalle Ardenne all’Inferno, known in English as Dirty Heroes, is an Italian war film directed by Alberto de Martino, starring Frederick Stafford as the leader of a gang of Allied soldiers plotting to steal some diamonds from a fortified Nazi German bunker during the Battle of the Ardennes at the end of World War II. The film – which also starred John Ireland and several James Bond alumni (Daniela Bianchi from From Russia With Love, Adolfo Celi from Thunderball, Anthony Dawson from Dr. No, Curt Jürgens who would later star in The Spy Who Loved Me) – was one of the first of the so-called “macaroni combat” war films inspired by the American film The Dirty Dozen The Dirty Dozen, but it was not well reviewed, and received a great deal of criticism for its poor acting and screenplay, slow pacing, and numerous logical errors.

The score is built mostly around two recurring main themes. The “Ardennes Theme March” is a wonderfully dark, imposing piece for staccato percussion, tolling bells, punchy brass, and a masculine choral element which eventually gives way to a rousing refrain for an impressive bank of trumpets. “Christine’s Theme” is the theme for Daniela Bianchi’s character, the unhappy wife of the German commander who helps the Allies with their mission; her theme is a pretty, but slightly bittersweet melody for longing woodwinds, harp glissandi, a tinkling mandolin, swooning strings, and a soothing choir.

The complete soundtrack was released for the first (and, to date, only) time in 2009 by Beat Records, although as is usually the way of things it includes five versions of the main Ardennes Theme march, six versions of Christine’s Theme, to pad out the running time to over an hour. Both themes can also be found on the comprehensive 15-CD compilation Ennio Morricone: The Complete Edition, released by GDM Music in 2008.

Words to watch: American movie "The Dirty Dozen", Percussion, bells, brass, trumpets, wistful woodwinds, harp slide, tinkling mandolin, strings, choir

Ardenne's Theme Marcia

Da Uomo a Uomo, known in English as Death Rides a Horse, is a brutal spaghetti western directed by Giulio Petroni about, as they often are, revenge and murder. The film stars Lee Van Cleef as Ryan, a gunfighter who is released from a prison after 15 years, having been framed for an armed robbery. As he sets out to track down the members of the gang who framed him he repeatedly crosses paths with Bill (John Philip Law), a young man whose entire family was murdered 15 years previously by members of the same gang that framed Ryan, and who is looking for vengeance of his own.

Morricone’s score for the film is based mostly around two recurring main themes: “Death Rides a Horse” and “Monody for Guitar.” The main “Death Rides a Horse” theme is a nerve-jangling piece for a bank of acoustic guitars, overlaid with an array of the unusual sound effects that Morricone often used for scores like this, notably a wildly impressionistic pan flute, rattling tambourines and driven timpani, and a chanted choral song espousing lyrics of impending doom (“he’ll be comin’ down the mountains, he’ll be drivin’ all his hatred”).

“Monody for Guitar,” meanwhile, is a more sorrowful sounding piece for guitars and hummed vocals that speaks to the lonely quest for vengeance undertaken by both men. There is also a slower piece, “Mystic and Severe,” which becomes quite hypnotic, and some more brooding tension music in “Anger and Sorrow” and “Alone in the Dark”.

The score for Death Rides a Horse was been released several times over the years. The best is the one released by GDM Music in 2004, which presents a more concise version of the music in a tight 45-minute package, although again there are five variations on the main theme, and three versions of the Monody for Guitar; it was re-released in 2010, again by GDM, with the addition of some stereo bonus cues.

Words to watch: wild impressionistic, Pan flutes, bongos and timpani, guitar

DEATH RIDES A HORSE (sung By Raoul)

MONODY FOR GUITAR

MYSTIC AND A WHISTLE (Mystic and Severe)

ANGER AND SORROW

ALONE IN THE NIGHT

L’Avventuriero is an Italian historical adventure drama film directed by Terence Young, based on the novel The Rover by Joseph Conrad. It is set against the backdrop of the French Revolution in the late 1700s and Anthony Quinn as Peyrol, an ageing former gunner with the French republican navy who went rogue and became a notorious pirate, but who seeks to leave his life of bloodshed behind him after 50 years adventuring on the high seas. The film co-stars Rosanna Schiaffino, Richard Johnson, and Rita Hayworth in one of her final screen roles.

The main theme, “L’Avventuriero,” is an unexpectedly thoughtful and introspective piece for strings, harpsichord, and solo violin, which is period-appropriate and casts a somber and possibly regretful look back at Peyrol’s life, the sins he has committed, and his longing for more peaceful conclusion to his life. A secondary melody half way through the cue has an almost lullaby-ish quality. This is counterbalanced by several versions of a darker and more insistent piece, “Il Rogo Della Strega,” which features a wonderfully vivid and flamboyant classical violin against urgent low percussion, tempestuous piano rolls, and massed voices shouting in fear, capturing Peyrol’s terrible reputation as the a rogue upon the high seas. Meanwhile, “Peirol’s Theme” has a more dream-like solo violin and soft, enticing voices cooing his name.

The most comprehensive release of the score is the 2010 version released by GDM Records, which features more than an hour of Morricone’s music (although there are seven different variations on the main theme). The main theme from L’Avventuriero can also be found on the comprehensive 15-CD compilation Ennio Morricone: The Complete Edition, released by GDM Music in 2008.

Words to watch: French Revolution, harpsichord, violin, lullaby, classical violin, low percussion, piano roll

L'AVVENTURIERO 1 1

IL ROGO DELLA STREDA

TEMA DI PEIROL

Ad Ogni Costo, released as Grand Slam in the United States, is a crime caper directed by Giuliano Montaldo, starring Edward G. Robinson as an American professor living in Brazil who, having grown bored with his life in academia, decides to try to pull off a diamond heist during the Rio Carnival. To this end he gathers together a team of skilled crime specialists, including an electronics engineer and a safecracking expert, to help him complete the job, while elsewhere a French playboy is hired to romance the only key to the building from its beautiful female owner, played by Janet Leigh.

The score is based around three main recurring themes. The main title, “Punto e Basta,” is an irrepressibly sunny piece of Herb Alpert -style Tijuana jazz, with a jaunty trumpet refrain, a light pop percussion section, and a choir ‘la la la’-ing and ‘ba-da-ba-ing over the melody. “Vai Via Malinconia” is a more lounge-based jazz piece with its roots in Brazilian bossa nova, with a moody trumpet melody and glittering rhythmic guitars. The eponymous “Ad Ogni Costo” is a little darker and more intense, but still based around jazz music principles, with an unusually metered rhythmic centerpiece for harpsichord and guitars, surrounded by all manner of ethnic shakers and percussion items.

Elsewhere, “Ai, Moreno” is a clattering, flamboyant carnival piece for trumpets and voices that make you want to done a fruit-encrusted headdress and shake your hips. “In Chiesa” is a gorgeous piece of liturgical church music for strings and pipe organ. Finally, “Dirgli Solo No” has a soft rumba beat and, oddly, a set of vaguely Chinese-sounding chord progressions, oddly juxtaposed against wistful vocals. None of this is really going to appeal to anyone who doesn’t care for Morricone’s Latin-flavored pop scores, but I like it a great deal.

I personally own the 1999 RCA Records release which combines 24 minutes of music from Ad Ogni Costo with score from the 1965 movie Menage all’Italiana. However, the most complete release of the music appears to be 2010 edition from GDM Music, which expands the score to 54 minutes with eleven variations on several of the core themes, and presents it with enhanced digital sound.

Words to watch: Herb Alpert stylee Tijuana jazz，Trumpet, percussion, Chinese chords, Latin flavor

Punto e Basta (Titoli de Testa)

Vai Vai Malinconia

In Chiesa

Dirgli Solo No

L’Harem was a European comedy-drama with sexual undertones, directed by Marco Ferreri and starring Carroll Baker. Baker plays Margherita, a sexually liberated young woman with several male lovers, who plays emotional games of pride and desire with three of them, pitting them against each other to win her affections during a summer trip to Croatia. The film was intended to be something of a commentary on gender stereotypes, and had the potential to be scandalous by having the lead character be female – a role reversal from the usual 1960s tropes of men having affairs with numerous beautiful women – but the film was a flop.

Morricone’s score, unexpectedly, undercuts the drama by containing a lot of music that is quite jazzy and upbeat. The main recurring theme, “L’Harem,” is sultry piece based on a languid solo saxophone melody accompanied by moody strings and some vaguely Middle Eastern percussion ideas involving light chimes, castanets, and watery-sounding percussion.

The score is quite short, and so the soundtrack album is based around multiple extended variations on these two main themes, some of which are close to 10 minutes long. Beat Records released an excellent album in 2017, with five pieces, plus some bonus tracks from the 1965 film Menage all’Italia.

Words to watch: Jazz, saxophone, strings, bells, castanets, water percussion

l'harem primo (una per tre) (07:05)

One of the best reviewed spaghetti western films of the genre’s golden era, Faccia a Faccia was the second western directed by Sergio Sollima after La Resa dei Conti in 1966. It stars Gian Maria Volontè as Professor Brad Fletcher, a liberal East Coast professor, who travels to the west during the American civil war and strikes up an unlikely relationship with Beauregard Bennet (Tomas Milian), a career criminal. Over the course of many years Fletcher and Bennet encounter each other several times, often saving each other’s lives, with each occurrence affecting the other man deeply – Fletcher teaches Bennet to be more humane, while Bennet gives Fletcher several hard doses of reality about life in the American west, and the circumstances which drove him to the outlaw life.

While not as memorable or outlandish as many of his other spaghetti westerns, Morricone’s score for Faccia a Faccia is excellent. The main theme, repeated numerous times in different variations throughout the score, is a rambunctious and dramatic piece which builds out of an impressionistic sequence for drums and organ, slowly turning  into a superb combination of nerve-jangling guitars, riotous clashing brass clusters, and a soaring countermelody for strings and chorus. One particular variation on this theme, “Intermezzo,” features the sublimely operatic vocals of Morricone’s regular collaborator Edda dell'Orso.

A recurring secondary theme, “Involuzione,” speaks to the life of Tomas Milian’s character with softer tones, clearly lamenting the fact that truly desperate circumstances, as opposed to personal choice, forced Bennet into his life as a gunslinger. A third theme, “Disperata Nostalgia” is a lovely piece for quasi-romantic acoustic guitars, and there are the usual old-timey saloon music source cues for banjo and harmonica (“Falso Preannuncio,” “Ballando sull’Aia,” “Square Dance”), plus sparsely-scored moments of suspense and danger (“Clandestinamente,” “Scatto Conclusivo,” “Tensione Sottintesa”).

Words to watch: Edda dell'Orso），old style Salon music, Drums, Organ, Guitar, Brass Cluster, Intermezzo, Acoustic Guitar, Banjo, Harmonica,

Faccia A Faccia (Titoli)(03:09)

Involuzione (Arriverderci Professor Fletcher) (01:23)

Disperata Nostalgia (Maria)(00:43)

Duello Nel Texas, sometimes known as Gunfight at Red Sands, was one of the first ever spaghetti western films, and the first western movie scored by Morricone, a year before A Fistful of Dollars. It was directed by Ricardo Blasco and Mario Caiano and stars Richard Harrison as Ricardo ‘Gringo’ Martinez, the adopted son of a family of Mexican sheep farmers, who witnesses the murder of his entire family by bandits. Bent on revenge, Gringo teams up with a local lawman, Corbett (G. R. Stuart) to track down the killers – but soon discovers that not everyone in his hometown wants the killers found.

The score is anchored by an absolutely fabulous song, “A Gringo Like Me,” which has music by Morricone, lyrics by Anne Carol Danell and Tino Fornai, and is performed with golden-voiced authority by folk singer Peter Tevis under a galloping, lyrical orchestral undercurrent. It’s the first song that Morricone wrote for a western film, and set the standard for all those that followed it. The score proper is actually surprisingly conventional, much closer in tone to the western scores of Moross and Bernstein than anything Morricone would himself write. Nevertheless, conventional Morricone is still good Morricone, and there is a lot to recommend. There are numerous cues full of intense and percussion-heavy rattling action music, moments of trumpet-led introspection and beauty, some soothing and folksy guitar solos, and some pseudo-comedic honkytonk saloon music that breaks the flow but probably works in context.

“Part 7,” “Part 14,” and “Part 18” reprise the melody from the ‘Gringo Like Me’ song with good-natured rambunctiousness. “Part 4,” “Part 11,” and “Part 12” are probably the pick of the action cues, and feature some stark, insistent piano chords underneath a shrill orchestra and rapped snare percussion. The lilting guitar melody that floats through several tracks, notably “Part 2,” is sometimes transposed to a lonely harmonica, as in “Part 8,” or a bank of emotional strings, as in “Part 10”. The more reflective side of the score is also illustrated by a soulful trumpet solo that can be heard in “Part 5” and especially the superb “Part 13”. The whole thing climaxes with overt emotion in the beautiful “Part 17,” a bank of lush strings. While not as creative as any of his later iconic spaghetti western scores, Duello Nel Texas is a fascinating look at the genesis of the entire genre, and is well worth exploring for devotees interested in film music history.

Words to watch: (the western scores of Moross and Bernstein, Percussion, trumpet, guitar, piano chords, guitar, harmonica

Track 1 (A gringo like me) (02:29)

Track 17 (02:06)

The inimitable Peter Tevis returns to perform the title song “Lonesome Billy,” a downbeat lament for the life of a gunfighter, made all the more poignant by the silky bass in the singer’s voice. The rest of the score is built around variations on the main theme, “Le Pistole Non Discutono,” a determined melody for trumpets underpinned by acoustic guitars and hoofbeat percussion, which often swells with dark brass nobility and string-led fortitude. There are numerous variations throughout the score, including a couple of lovely versions for solo guitar, a somewhat dissonant variation including chaotically stark combination of pianos and harmonica and thrumming bass guitars (“#2”), and a fun arrangement for regional folk instruments and a Spanish soprano vocalist in the “Version Cantina Messicana”.

The two other main recurring ideas are “Gli Indiani,” recurring insistent explosions of percussion, stabbing pianos, and low horn clusters which give the score a sense of danger and underscore most of the film’s action sequences, and “La Ragazza e Lo Scheriffo,” a more bouncy and playful melody for assorted woodwinds that stands at odds with the rest of the score, but is a ton of fun.

There’s a lot of ‘what if’ about Le Pistole Non Discutono – what if this film had been more successful than A Fistful of Dollars, as was expected? Would this score have been more famous today? Film and music history are filled with stories like this, of chance and missed opportunity. Whatever the case may be, and despite its obscurity these days, Le Pistole Non Discutono is a great early entry into the spaghetti western genre, with a lovely lilting main theme and some bold, energetic, enjoyable action music.

Words to watch: Trumpet, acoustic guitar, hoofbeat percussion, dark brass, strings, guitar, piano, harmonica, regional folk instrument, horn group, woodwinds

Lonesome Billy (01:50)

Gli indiani (02:13)

La ragazza e lo scheriffo (01:08)

Prima Della Rivoluzione – Before the Revolution – is an Italian neo-realist romantic drama film, directed by the great Bernardo Bertolucci in what was one of his first theatrical films. It stars Adriana Asti and Francesco Barilli as two young lovers, Gina and Fabrizio, and charts the course of their relationship against the political and social upheaval that gripped much of Europe at the time. It explores themes of civil rights, socialist political ideologies, and religion, and is strongly inspired by the French New Wave cinema of directors like Jean-Luc Godard）and François Truffaut.

The score for Prima Della Rivoluzione is subdued and introspective and quite serious, and is built around layered banks of strings which often play against each other in unusual ways. The title track, “Prima Della Rivoluzione,” is highly classical in nature, and just gorgeous. Meanwhile, the romance between Gina and Fabrizio is captured by some lovely, elegant writing for strings and woodwinds in “E Dopo,” and this style of writing continues on into later cues such as “Sognare O Non Sognare,” where the woodwinds are paired with florid acoustic guitars.

“Vivere O Non Vivere” gives the woodwinds a renaissance lilt via the inclusion of a harpsichord, and this continues in into the elaborate and gilded “Tu Vedrai,” which juxtaposes the lyrical strings of the main theme against Bach-like keyboards, and becomes quite breathlessly beautiful as it develops over almost eight minutes.

Words to watch: Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut, string section, woodwinds, acoustic guitar, harpsichord, renaissance, strings, Bach keyboard

Prima della rivoluzione (01:42）

The main title theme, “The Hills Run Red,” is a stridently heroic march for brass and strings augmented by the dulcet tones of soprano Edda dell’Orso and a male voice choir, and its recapitulations and variations in “The Fury of Fire,” “The River of Dollars,” “Vindication,” and the conclusive “Un Fiume di Dollari” are score highlights. There is suspense music a-plenty too, with the familiar nervous agitato strings, muted horns, and impatient snare drum licks anchoring cues like “Fifteen Miles to Prison” and the sometimes quite dissonant “Blind Obsession”. Elsewhere there is some wistful music for glockenspiel, harp and strings in “Dreams Into Dust,” which gives Brewster’s longing for home a poignant twist; the soft focus pop arrangements of the same ideas in “Memories of Rebecca” and “The Girl With the Golden Hair” are of their time.

The soundtrack also includes two original songs, “Home to My Love” and “Quel Giorno Verrà,” both of which are performed by Gino, and neither of which I care for; there is also some lively Mexican source music in cues such as “Fiesta del Sol,” which is authentic and features some ripe trumpet solos, some down-home Americana in “Ecstasy of Strings,” and ragtimee/honkytonk saloon pianos in “Five Card Draw,” the latter of which unfortunately verge on the annoying.

Words to watch: Ragtime）/ honkytonk saloon pianos, Brass, strings, snare drum, glockenspiel, harp, Mexican source music, American music, trumpet

The Hills Run Red (01:34)

Five Card Draw (02:35)

Morricone’s scores for sex comedies are so different from anything else he wrote; they were rooted into that 1960s Euro-pop sound, which blended sultry vibrato-heavy strings with languid electric guitar licks, brushed jazzy percussion ideas, moody woodwinds, Hammond organs, and faraway vocals, some of which mimic breathy orgasm noises. Much of the score’s melodic content is based on variations around the melody of the opening song, “Pioggia Sul Tuo Viso,” which is dream-like and ethereal and blends electric guitars and what sounds like sampled--whale song. Several subsequent cues – notably “La Diva” and “La Donna Gattina,” plus the various alternate versions of the main theme – follow this same trend, encompassing a series of lounge pop and jazz instrumentals.

One or two cues does stand out for their originality and uniqueness. “La Donna Romantica,” as the name suggests, is much more straightforwardly romantic, and is a lovely, slow duet for piano and strings that can stand with some of his best love themes from the period. “Pizzicato” is, as the name suggests, a somewhat abstract piece for pizzicato strings accompanied by harpsichords and fluttering woodwinds. Meanwhile, several mid-album cues – “Alta Moda,” “Alla Corte di Luigi XVI,” and “La Duchessa” –embrace a highly classical 17th century sound, offering Bach-like arrangements of strings, woodwinds, and brass.

Words to watch: sampled--whale song, Bach-like arrangements of strings, 1960s Europop, vibrato strings, electric guitar licks, brushed jazz percussion, woodwinds, Hammond organ, vocals, lounge pop, jazz instrumentals, pizzicato strings, harpsichord, high classical 17th century sounds, woodwinds, brass instruments

Pioggia sul tuo viso (02:26)

La donna romantica (06:08)

La duchessa (01:36)

The first score cue on the album is vastly different from what follows it: the opening “Adonai” is a driving piece of orchestral rock music led by a heavy electric guitar riff, modern percussion, a screaming trumpet, and an incongruous but brilliantly-incorporated harpsichord. The whole thing is topped off by yelping vocals performed by I Cantori Moderni di Alessandroni. It’s quite brilliant. “Nel Profondo dell’Eros,” on the other hand, is an eerie exploration of shimmering tones for strings and light electronics, which often descend in to abstract and chaos that is quite difficult to describe, other than is feels like the sound of an orchestra tuning up, but more organized.

The title track “Il Giardino Delle Delizie (Primo)” features the ghostly tones of soprano Edda dell’Orso against a bank of eerie strings, while the subsequent “Il Giardino Delle Delizie (Secondo)” contines down the same path, sans vocals. The conclusive “Peccato Originale” is perhaps the most abstract piece of all: faraway vocals, string figures, and unusual processed sound effects fade in and out of the cue over the course of more than several minutes, testing the patience of the listener.

Il Giardino Delle Delizie is an odd duck of a score, which starts out with a maniacally upbeat rock track, but then settles down into a series of unusual tonal explorations which, unfortunately, only dedicated devotees of Morricone’s work will feel the need to check out. The soundtrack for Il Giardino Delle Delizie is an elusive one; although the main title theme does crop up on one or two of the more comprehensive Morricone collections, the complete work has never been released. The best bet for collectors appears to be this 2004 release from GDM Records, which pairs just over 15 minutes of score from this film with selections from the 1987 film Quartiere and the 1995 film L’Uomo Proiettile.

Words to watch: Electric guitar, modern percussion, trumpet, harpsichord, rock music, ghost tones, rock tracks

Adonai (03:04)

Nel profondo dell'Eros (01:02)

Il giardino delle delizie (primo) (05:34)

Peccato originale (04:19)

I Crudeli, released in English as The Hellbenders, is an influential spaghetti western directed by Sergio Corbucci, with whom Morricone collaborated on Navajo Joe, Il Mercenario, Il Grande Silenzio, and Vamos a Matar Compañeros, among others. The film stars Joseph Cotten as Colonel Jonas, the former leader of a notoriously vicious platoon in the recently-defeated Confederate Army, who finds a hoard of Union gold and – with the help of his greedy and villainous sons – plans to use it to revive the Confederacy.

The main title theme, “I Crudeli,” is an effortlessly cool theme for a lazy, jazzy trumpet over rattling metallic percussion, which gradually picks up an undercurrent of soothing voices and, eventually, an urgent piano rhythm. It sounds more like something Lalo Schifrin might have written for an urban crime thriller than a civil war-era revenge movie, but Morricone was never one to make the obvious choice. The theme anchors several additional cues, with variations that range from a downbeat acoustic guitar version in “The Widow” to the more impressive statements in the score’s finale.

The action and suspense music, in cues like “Prima dell’Assalto,” “La Conguira,” “Dopo la Congiura,” “Attesa del Nulla,” and others, tends to be tight and sparse and edgy, making use of rattling tick-tock percussion, staccato guitar licks, and jittery piano chords that emerge from the low end of the keyboard. Elsewhere, the various versions of the solemn “Un Monumento” all feature a typically iconic trumpet solo and, often, a soaring soprano solo vocal, but these are among the few melodic high points of a score which mostly seems to favor the creation of a relentlessly uneasy mood than impressing the listener with recurring bold themes or moments of notable beauty.

The somewhat restrained, sparse, and nervous sound that permeates the score for I Crudeli does make it difficult to appreciate, but Morricone certainly captures the tone of darkness and immortality that permeates the film with his music, and that’s certainly worth something. The score for I Crudeli has been released several times over the years, both as a standalone album, and as part double-feature released combined with the score for Revolver, among others. My personal recommendation – and the score being reviewed here – is the 2017 release from Dagored Records, which includes the score as a standalone album, and includes additional music and outtakes not featured on other releases.

Words to watch: Lalo Schifrin，Metal percussion, jazz trumpet, piano, acoustic guitar, guitar lick sound, trumpet, soprano solo

I Crudeli

Prima Dell'Assalto

As a parody of two of the most iconic genres of the decade, the score is clearly rooted in the musical stylistics of the movies it is parodying, but the dials are all turned up to 11, resulting in a score which drowns in overkill, but is still superbly entertaining if you can get in the right headspace. Morricone’s contribution to the score begins with the “Titoli,” which is an unusual piece of spacey orchestral electronic dissonance underpinned by sultry jazz grooves and vocals, which open the album on an unusual note. The subsequent “Una Dolce Corsa” is a swooning, pseudo-romantic piece for sweeping strings, rock percussion, and Edda dell’Orso’s elevated vocals, intermittently interrupted by a jazzy John Barry-style roaring trumpet that is clearly intended to evoke the espionage cool of James Bond.

“Suspense” is a thunderous explosion of rampaging percussion, throbbing brass, and clamoring vocals, and is intensely energetic, like a chaotic dance piece on psychedelic drugs. This stylistic continues on into “La Danza Delle Trombe,” which adds a Hammond organ and an electric guitar into the same frenzied mix. Later, “Un Pensiero Incantevole” is a sultry, dreamy romance piece for lilting strings, come-hither vocals, and jazzy brushed snares that is typical of the era; the subsequent cue is an arrangement of the same melody for guitar. Finally, “Una Vita Felice” is a sunny, optimistic rock instrumental, which seemingly re-purposes the ‘wa-wa-wa’ vocals from The Good the Bad and the Ugly in a very different setting.

Marinuzzi’s tracks are less impressive that Morricone’s (natch), but still contain some moments worth highlighting. “Un Sogno Ricorrente” is a festival of chipper pizzicato and swooning strings. “Notturno” is a more languid arrangement of the same string theme. “Marcetta Divertente” and “Una Filastrocca Di Note” are pieces of comedy fluff, “Brivido Gelido” is brass-led suspense music, and “Tema Scartato” is a groovy finger-snapping dance band piece. This is the first music I have heard from Marinuzzi, and on this evidence it’s worth seeking out other things he has written.

Words to watch: Gino Marinuzzi Jr. , Empty orchestral electronic dissonance, jazz, vocals, pseudo-romantic works

donne e amori (02:57)

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.

（Words to watch: Nino Rota, standing piano, woodwinds, harmonica, acoustic guitar,

Il Cortile Ennio Morricone (03:32)

Il Ritorno A Casa Luigi Tenco & Ennio Morricone (02:35)