A Composer behind the Film Camera

Abstract

This article was first published in Enciclopedia della musica. I. Il Novecento, 2001, pp. LXVIII-1333. Reproduced courtesy of Giulio Einaudi editore s.p.a., Torino.1 The Multiplicity of TechniquesI must confess that the request to write an article about my experience as a composer of music for films initially made me feel ill at ease. The craft of the composer is that of composing, not of writing. By all means, I also like to reflect on what I do. But reflecting on my own is one thing, putting myself before a blank page and filling it with reflections that will end up in the head of who knows whom and be received who knows how is another thing. Frankly, I feel more at ease when I can talk to someone face to face, when this person can react to what I say - that is, when a dialogue is established rather than when I have to do it all by myself. There also are, and have been, musician authors, but not everyone has had this talent: Wagner had it, but not Verdi, if I may dare refer to composers of this calibre. Now then, dear reader, pretend we're in front of one another and we're chatting. Don't expect any theoretical abstract talk. Expect, rather, a dialogue, and ask me some question every now and then. I will try to answer you.I'm going to start with some autobiographical information, which I believe is necessary to better introduce the things I intend to talk about. I had a double training: in the Conservatoire, where I studied performance and composition according to the regular courses, and out of the Conservatoire, in dance halls, various kinds of theatres and public venues, where I made music for a living. In this second respect, my guide and model was my father. It is he who opened this road for me, because this was precisely his profession. In this respect, I come from a musical family. And I also must add that it is thanks to all of this that I'm probably one of the few Italian composers who has always earned a living from composing music.At the Conservatoire I learned the technical foundations of the craft inside out. Without this I couldn't have done any of the things I did afterwards. Out of the Conservatoire I learned other important things that schools don't teach: I taught myself the techniques of arrangement, and I also learned to compose music that had a good theatrical effect. And I must have learned pretty well if a few years later the RAI1 called me to arrange for radio orchestras and later to work for television. I started working for cinema only after I had acquired a little notoriety in the circles I've just mentioned.I believe my luck is due precisely to my humble beginnings. In those years I was trying to redeem the low matter of pop ditties, of which I was sometimes even ashamed, trying to turn them into something different, inserting, for example, quotations from classical pieces or dodecaphonic serial patterns. It was a way of heightening those kinds of music. And this probably gave my lesser works from that time certain unexpected features that someone considered not unpleasant, and that helped me to be appreciated and accepted. I will confess that features of this kind almost gave me a sense of revenge on what I considered a secondary - or even a slightly depressing - profession.The first encouragements in the field of cinema came from Luciano Salce, with whom I collaborated on his first Italian film in 1961: it was Il Federale ('The Fascist'). I was a little over thirty years old then, but I already had had a pretty long public career. In fact, he called me because he had already had opportunity to appreciate my music in two theatre comedies, one by Marceau and one by himself.All this biographic introduction is not for its own sake. I would have no reason to be telling you my life story here. The truth of the matter is: I need it in order to explain what music for cinema is, when all is said and done. In brief, I would say that it is a very peculiar art, different from others. …