- Composed by Carlo Rustichelli
- Digitmovies / 2012 / 73m
A 1968 spaghetti western take on “Carmen”, L’Uomo, L’Orgoglio, La Vendetta (known in English-speaking countries as Pride and Vengeance) starred Franco Nero, Tina Aumont and Klaus Kinski. It’s not especially well thought of. Providing the score was veteran Italian composer Carlo Rustichelli, whose 400+ movie career began in the late 1930s. His score opens with a grand, darkly ominous main title piece, acoustic guitar providing the only real “western” hint. The highlight of the score is undoubtedly the gorgeous “Tema di Jose”, a lilting guitar solo highlighting the composer’s beautiful melody. Later it gets a fully symphonic, predictably tragic treatment in the finale, “Morte di Jose”. Guitars abound of course in “Fandango”, as lively and indeed lovely as you might expect. It is this Spanish flavour which pervades the whole score – Rustichelli making few if any concessions to the generally-accepted sound of the spaghetti western.
“Tema della Solitudine” sees a passage for guitar lead into a mournful, funereal almost, organ solo and then some Herrmannesque strings; it’s an absolutely captivating piece. Other beautiful – but very low-key – guitar melodies are heard in “Habenera Gitana” and “Da Lillas”; simple but hugely attractive (not unlike myself). Livelier is the action piece “Il Colpo”, brass stingers lying over dramatic strings, almost like a horror score, before a dynamic horn line takes off; it gets an even grander treatment later in “L’Inseguimento di Garcia”. “Sul Fiume” is a grand, romantic piece, complete with Alessandroni’s choir; a top track. There’s a wealth of great Italian film music out there beyond Morricone and a number of labels devoted to its release; in fact, there’s so much, and so many releases, it can be very daunting to know what to get. Take the right punt and the rewards can be very rich indeed; and this one’s most certainly worth a punt, with a blend of romantic and dramatic material put through a lovely Spanish filter thanks to the guitars.
Rating: ****
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“There’s a wealth of great Italian film music out there beyond Morricone […] in fact, there’s so much, and so many releases, it can be very daunting to know what to get.”
Exactly my thought when I recently took a “break” from exploring Morricone’s body of work and turned my attention to the (many) other spaghetti western composers. However, exploring the Italian composers of the 60s and 70s isn’t easy as well when many of them have produced at least 100 (and often a lot more) scores! Thanks to the great playlists of Easywind’s YouTube channel (http://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9CF6TBTsqv1Gt-1wKvZZ0A), I was able to discover wonderful gems amongst the enormous pile of spaghetti western/Italian’s golden age soundtracks. A challenging, but very rewarding journey, indeed!
Next to compilation lists, reviews of spaghetti westerns are also very welcome and helpful, of course, so thanks for drawing my attention to ‘L’Uomo, L’Orgoglio, La Vendetta’. The use of the acoustic guitar is interesting and the album has its strong moments, but I think the score as a whole is not really my cup of tea (maybe because it’s missing the really typical “spaghetti western-ness”?).