Title: N.P.
– Il segreto
Year: 1971
Composer: Nicola Piovani
Nicola Piovani
is an Italian composer whose works I haven’t been liking all that much. I mean
his works are fine, but perhaps too light-hearted and ‘simple’ for my taste. I
purchased this Music Box records album at a sale and it is a fairly enjoyable experience
with two quite different scores 10 years apart from another.
The first
one, N.P. – Il segreto is a film about
a dystopian future society with state control and despotic leaders. The main
theme is surprisingly happy given the subject matter. It’s a version of Niccolò Paganini’s Caprice no 24 but turned into a psychedelic 70s beat track with
harpsichord, surf guitars, organ and so on. It’s similar to what Morricone did with Dies irae for the film Escalation.
Eventually more orchestral elements are added along with a nod to the original
composer with a short solo violin passage. The final track includes a la-la
choir which is just so fun that you have to start humming along. It’s the
highlight of the whole album for me.
Speaking of
Morricone, Strike #1 is straight out
of his works for political thrillers with steady piano rhythms and weird
harmonies with hints to the Paganini melody.
It’s a cool little cue but pales in comparison to the brutal force perhaps needed
for a political setting. Strike #2 is
more aggressive arrangement of the same material and includes even some
distorted electronic guitar notes to disturb the mood. Butterfly introduces two recurring melodies. First a semi-religious
string melody with unexpected chord progressions, later sung by a choir in
track 7 with a sweet accompaniment, the most sincere moment on the album. The
second one just wanders on mournfully without that much variation and just
repeats itself on and on. That same tune is reprised in Prophet by a solo accordion and viola and finally in Transformation by a marching band which
gets unfortunately very tedious with the endless repetition. We return to the
martial feel in Montage which begins
with just the drums on top of which harpsichord lines and sharp piano notes are
then played. Again, it’s more comedic in tone than suspenseful but I’m
impressed how entertaining it is with so few instruments.
The score
is just under 30 minutes long but even for that amount the material seems
enough. Unfortunately there isn’t enough variation and most of the cues are
just repeating a short tune with little changes in the orchestration. The main
theme and its applications in the two Strike
-cues are the highlights and the main reason for further listens.
Rating: ***1/2
Title: Il
minestrone
Year: 1981
Composer: Nicola Piovani
The main
theme for Il minestrone is a polar
opposite in tone to N.P. – Il segreto.
The film is a comedy about a group of scoundrels trying to eat for free in
restaurants by committing scams. Well this time the melody is dead serious,
folksy mandolin tune reminiscent of Italian rural melodies or even Italo-schlager
harmonies. This juxtaposition of the subject matter and the music makes it comedic
and a delight to listen to. Snippets of the main theme appear frequently for
instance at the end of Promenade by a
marching band, and in a very silent film like piano/harpsichord duet Food fight which just keeps the mad
pacing going. Dog eat dog combines
the fastening pace with the nostalgic strings and some marching band creating
an entertaining moment.
Most of the
album’s other melodies are in the same style as the main theme, sounding pretty
much Italian traditional music, a style which Piovani does very well and I’m
most familiar of him doing. However many of these melodies are more
light-hearted than the actual main theme. There is straight up restaurant
source music for either mandolin or viola backed by a strumming guitarist in Invisible meal, Jaunty source and Rich meal.
It’s appropriate scoring but
unfortunately the cues start to run into each other and you again start to wish
for some variety. A new arrangement by a Strauss-melody
Die Fledermaus is written in that
same restautant-like way.
Piovani also
wrote his own slower Alpine, Strauss-inspired
tune which is introduced in Wandering, then
heard along with a lonesome trumpet playing the main theme in In the mountains and in its sweetest
form in After the storm. Some
straight marching band tunes are heard in Marines
and eventually in Finale which is
an extended treatment of the previously mentioned Alpine tune along with
snippets of the main theme. A very beautiful solo piano piece Il maestro is a nice change of pace and highly
moving with its simple, descending chord progressions, a clear highlight for
sure.
Of the two
scores, Il minestrone perhaps is the more approachable one but the material is even more monotonous. If you can’t stand
Italian traditional music with emphasis on mandolin, then I advise you to stay
away from this one. However I have to admit that the main theme is actually
pretty infectious especially when the pace gets going.
Rating: ***1/2
Tracklist:
1. N.P. -
Il segreto (Main theme) (03:36) *****
2. N.P. -
Il segreto (Strike #1) (01:56) ****
3. N.P. -
Il segreto (Butterfly) (03:37) ***
4. N.P. -
Il segreto (Montage) (03:53) ****
5. N.P. -
Il segreto (Prophet) (01:25) ***
6. N.P. -
Il segreto (Strike #2) (02:31) ****
7. N.P. -
Il segreto (Choir) (02:32) ****
8. N.P. -
Il segreto (Transformation) (04:25) ***
9. N.P. -
Il segreto (Main theme - choral) (03:38) *****
10. Il
minestrone (Main theme) (03:47) *****
11. Il
minestrone (Invisible meal) (02:01) ****
12. Il
minestrone (Promenade - 1st version) (02:51) ****
13. Il
minestrone (Food fight) (02:23) ****
14. Il
minestrone (Wandering) (00:53) ***
15. Il
minestrone (March) (00:59) ***
16. Il
minestrone (Jaunty source) (01:09) ***
17. Il
minestrone (Dog eat dog) (02:00) ****
18. Il
minestrone (Rich meal) (01:32) ***
19. Il
minestrone (Promenade - 2nd version) (02:34) ***
20. Il
minestrone (Il maestro) (02:06) *****
21. Il
minestrone (Die Fledermaus) (01:47) ***
22. Il
minestrone (Marines) (02:51) ***
23. Il
minestrone (In the mountains) (01:22) ****
24. Il
minestrone (After the storm) (02:14) ****
25. Il
minestrone (Finale) (04:21) ***
26. Il
minestrone (Main theme - alternate version) (03:11) *****
