• Composed by Ennio Morricone
• Dagored / 2004 / 26:57

One of many spaghetti westerns about the Mexican revolution, Tepepa stars Tomas Milian in the titular role, with support coming from John Steiner as a doctor and Orson Welles (!) as an army colonel.  Ennio Morricone’s fine score is not one of his better-known westerns, but well worth seeking out.  It opens with the Mexicana of the main theme, “Viva La Revolucion” – the melody itself begins gently, becoming increasingly stirring as it goes on.  It’s a really fine piece, (literally) lacking the bells and whistles of the composer’s best-known western themes but wholesome and evocative and really rather wonderful.

The second theme, “Tepepa e Price”, features a warm flute melody and a great deal of character.  “Tradimento Primo” is disarmingly straightforward, guitar strumming over modest orchestral backing, before another wonderful theme appears in “A Meta Strada”, a warm string theme full of nostalgia given a Mexican flavour thanks to the guitar.  “Al Messico Che Vorrei” is a beautiful folk song performed by Christy, whose powerful vocals combine with a terrific trumpet solo.  “Una Rosa” is a brief but flavourful piece of mariachi source music, ushering in the second half of the score which is a little darker than the first, with a couple of effective suspense cues.  This is one of Morricone’s most laid-back western scores, but even without the usual showmanship there is tremendous quality here, and it makes for a simply lovely album which I couldn’t recommend more highly.  There have been a couple of expanded versions since this Dagored album was released in 2004, but this is probably the easiest version to find.  *****

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