Ennio Morricone in the wonderful, beautiful Ideato

I once posted a beautiful unknown album he made here.  Actually that one remains one of my all-time favourite Library LPs.  (At this point of course 'all-time favourite' probably encompasses several dozen, as my wife loves to point out.  Or even hundreds.  And 'all-time' would have to be limited to about a month-- partly with the memory as it is now.)

Presentimento is so beautiful it sounds like it must be magic.  How is it possible some men were given such a gift to take us to heaven from our lowly lives here on the earth?  Notice how two thirds of the way into the track the song completely changes key and sound, until that gentle french horn returns (classic Morricone) to play the thoughtful melody:

CINEVOX 1203 (1983) Sonorizzazioni - Ecologia (featuring the incomparable Ennio Morricone) [lossless upgrade]

When I first heard this I fell out of my chair, again.  The amazing Morricone, responsible for so much fantastic Italian soundtrack music, can always make a beeline straight into my soul with his warm and expressive melodies and sounds, tinged often with melancholia, as in this instance.  Probably still his most famous is the theme for "Once upon a time in the West".

I wonder in particular if some of these fantastic compositions made their way into some of those late night art movies we watched when young, my brother and myself, in which sundry young and hairy Italian starlets got naked for older men and were apparently available, vaginally, for any man who sought their company for the night...  ah those good ol' days....

Note that Carlo Rustichelli was also a huge and prolific soundtrack composer, as were the other contributors to this record, Gaslini, Bixio, Piccione, and Ferrio.  So this explains the amazingly high quality of the music here.  A relatively poor rip was circulating before that really didn't do this music justice, so I bought the record, I had to.

First track, one from Morricone:





It's amazing what a skillful composer he was, especially in the late seventies period: oftentimes a theme in a minor key would gracefully pass into an unexpected major key, as in the soundtrack for "Cosi Como Sei" before returning to minor, like a life of sadness interspersed with unexpected happiness.  I'm reminded of American poet Robert Frost's fantastic line:

"Happiness makes up in height what it lacks, in width"

And in fact we can say the same about this music we love so much, that for us it makes up in beauty, what it lacks, in popularity...

Note the two different covers, of which the top is a little more attractive, no question.

If anyone has more information on this release, such as where these tracks appeared in movies, I'd really welcome it.  I really have to wonder how many stunning songs are lost to time altogether now from these old Italian soundtracks, if this is any indication of the quality thereof.

Ennio's Mesa Verde: