Title: A
come Andromeda
Year: 1971
Composer: Mario Migliardi
A come Andromeda tells a story about creating artificial life
and it’s considered to be the first sci-fi TV series produced for Italian TV.
It’s based on the British TV series from the 60s also called A for Andromeda. The Italian version
includes a varied score by Mario Migliardi who isn’t that well-known film
composer and quite unknown to me as well. This score is the only one I own from
him and I haven’t listened to it for a while so it’s nice to hear how this very
lengthy album holds up.
The album
begins with the main title track that features the eerie voice of Edda
dell’Orso accompanied by both electronic and acoustic guitars, pop comp and
other choir members of I cantori moderni.
The melody draws inspiration from Baroque progressions and strangely also from
Spaghetti Western melodies and it perfectly accompanies that feeling fit for
mad scientists and sterile research facilities. The chamber-sized ensemble
allows all the delicate instrumental choices to shine through. Unfortunately
the melody isn’t featured during the rest of the score. There’s a single
version in track 23 which sounds very fresh after the preceding dissonance even
though I really can’t hear any differences to the first version.
The album
is roughly divided into two parts. The first one is the dissonant music
perfectly describing all the scientific experiments going on. The music seems
to blend both electronic and acoustic instruments into a mixture of ever-changing
and surprising, musique concrète inspired moments of pure oddness or terror.
Both the first two sequences titled A
come Andromeda are perfect examples of this. The first one concentrates
more on the weird instrumentation that sounds even comical with its use of the
xylophone. The second one has earth-shattering, massive orchestral crescendos
that certainly make the hairs on your back stand up. Seq. 4 includes strange electronic effects that are contrasted to a
delicate harp performance for some reason. Seq.5
on the other hand begins with a massive church organ playing dissonant
chords before turning back to tinkling electronics. Seq. 6 first sounds like it would turn into a brass band piece but
it takes a 180 turn back to the most abrasive dissonance heard thus far.
However the
effects intensify as we go further down the line: Seq. 7, Seq. 9 and Seq. 10 consist only of sound effects produced
with pianos, electronics and occasional choral textures. Seq. 11 offers completely terrifying and otherworldly choral voices
along with strange acoustic noises probably produced by piano strings. There’s
also an atonal flute solo in Seq. 12
that could sound rather charming in a different setting but now it’s only
accompanied by cold and sterile electronic textures. Atonal string writing of Seq. 14 and electronically manipulated
choral voices of Seq. 15 move away
from the constraints of traditional film scoring but are unfortunately too
difficult to enjoy on their own. The last 2 tracks before the single versions
quiet down to the bare minimum of tinkling electronics before the Ligeti like
choir appears for the final sendoff.
The second part
of the album consists of lounge music inspired cues though many of them offer
some weirdness too. The first one is Seq.
3 which has bossa rhythms and a jazzy flute solo, but the accompanying
strings just sound like they’re playing the wrong notes. The mixture is just so
weird but intriguing at the same time that it makes me smile. La spiaggia di Durness is a moment of that
romantic 70s fluffy string work with flute and harp flourishes among classical
piano solos. It’s easily the most ‘normal’ sounding cue on the album but it
suffers from not having a clear, hummable melody. At the end of ‘versione TV’ it turns into a fast jazz
waltz for a moment that soon returns to the fluff that came before. It’s
reprised in track 20 with a more atonal string intro. It also ends the whole
album with its single version which is basically an extended treatment of the
jazz waltz.
Another
long track Seq. 8 opens with dissonant
creeping around in empty hangars and corridors with ghostly choral voices and
woodblocks which eventually turn into a laid-back party cue complete with
groovy electric guitars and buzzing keyboard solos. The choir returns at the
end of the cue with a strange juxtaposition of them singing in the distance,
away from the band. There’s also another 70s party cue Seq. 13 that includes more keyboard solos but ends with strange metallic
twanging sounds. There’s almost a sacred acapella choral piece in Seq. 16 that is like music of some alien
civilization.
I can
imagine that creating music this varied and unique must have been a fun task to
do and in some of the tracks you can even sense the enthusiasm. The problem is
that though I like challenging music, even I find some of the techniques used
in this score too obnoxious and difficult. The length of the album doesn’t help
either, there’s way too much of droning dissonance that really doesn’t develop
into anything. Though the score is at times frustrating, I have to give credit
for the unique soundscape Migliardi tried to create here even though he perhaps
went too far in a few places.
Rating: ***
Tracklist:
1. Tema di
Andromeda (Titoli) (03:39) *****
2. A come
Andromeda (02:48) ****
3. A come
Andromeda (Seq. 2) (02:54) *****
4. A come
Andromeda (Seq. 3) (01:24) *****
5. A come
Andromeda (Seq. 4) (01:34) ****
6. A come
Andromeda (Seq. 5) (02:05) ***
7. A come
Andromeda (Seq. 6) (03:03) *
8. La
spiaggia di Durness (versione TV) (05:59) ****
9. A come
Andromeda (Seq. 7) (02:03) *
10. A come
Andromeda (Seq. 8) (08:00) ****
11. A come
Andromeda (Seq. 9) (01:07) **
12. A come
Andromeda (Seq. 10) (01:28) *
13. A come
Andromeda (Seq. 11) (03:28) ****
14. A come
Andromeda (Seq. 12) (02:23) ****
15. A come
Andromeda (Seq. 13) (03:28) ***
16. A come
Andromeda (Seq. 14) (04:43) **
17. A come
Andromeda (Seq. 15) (04:24) **
18. A come
Andromeda (Seq. 16) (01:13) ****
19. A come
Andromeda (Seq. 17) (01:36) **
20. La
spiaggia di Durness (versione TV #2) (01:57) ****
21. A come
Andromeda (Seq. 18) (03:04) **
22. A come
Andromeda (Seq. 19) (03:06) ***
23. Tema di
Andromeda (Mix Singolo Lato A) (03:39) *****
24. La
spiaggia di Durness (Mix Singolo Lato B) (02:59) ****
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