SAIFAM Italy Schallplatten & CDs

Review: Alzati Spia is one of countless soundtracks from Ennio Morricone that expose his masterful ability to elevate film through music. This one from 1982 blends suspenseful orchestrations, dramatic tension and avant-garde experimentation that mirror the titular espionage thriller's atmosphere with real precision. Morricone's signature use of unconventional instrumentation and haunting melodies keeps you gripped while the eerie intrigue comes from string arrangements and bold bass. These are emotionally charged compositions that evoke rich mental imagery to the point that even without the film playing they unfold like an immersive mind movie.

Review: While the world instantly remembers Ennio Morricone's heroic contribution to the world of movie scores at the height of the Spaghetti Western trend - Italian produced cowboy flicks set on the frontier of an early United States - less people will jump to the name Bruno Nicolai. And yet, here we are, faced with one of the greatest soundtracks ever written for any film in the canon. Archetypal of the genre, Nicolai conducted many of his close friend Morricone's scores, and this betrays what to expect from this masterpiece. The soundscapes are grand and pompous, open and mysterious, edgy and tense. Varied, but always the aural equivalent of panning across almost-unchartered plains and seeing a solitary rider appear on the horizon. If that sounds remotely entertaining, this is an essential.

Review: Pianist. Conductor. Composer. Impressario. Extraordinaire. We could probably leave it at that with Piero Piccioni, but for the sake of clarity let's get clear. One of Italy's most prolific film composers of the mid-late-20th Century, this monolith of big band and jazz wrote more than 300 movie scores in his career, and also lays claim to membership of 013, the first jazz outfit broadcast in his home country following the fall of Fascism in 1944. Born in Turin, one of the epicentres of Italian music, Cadaveri Eccellenti was a 1977 crime thriller about Lino Ventura, Italy's top homicide detective, who is investigating the assassination of a judge. Full of intrigue, mystery, and tension, not to mention that underlying sense of sexiness which seems to pervade European flicks of this era, by now you can probably imagine how cool the score is.