Rob Price
Gutbrain Records
rob + gutbrain.com = email

2019 June 03 • Monday

Happy birthday!

The 572nd Soundtrack of the Week is Nora Orlandi's music for Il diario proibito di Fanny.

The "Titoli" theme is a jazz waltz for a combo of horns, guitar, bass and drums, with the horns doing most of the work with this punchy and swinging start-and-stop melody.

"Luna Park" sounds like calliope music with flute and Wurlitzer trading off as the main voice.

And then there’s "Psichidelico", which is a trippy but spacious piece for just organ and percussion.

"Come in un western" does in fact sound just like a spaghetti western cue with the trumpet dominating the first half while twangy electric guitar takes over for the second.

Continuing the western theme is a "Saloon" piece, and that particular piano style has never appealed to me. It’s replaced almost immediately by solo classical piano. Chopin, maybe?

Then there’s a "Shake". I always enjoy these. This one has a typically bouncy beat, cool electric guitar sound and very minimal melodic and harmonic activity.

The "Love Theme" is a gentle piece introduced by flute. It unexpectedly switches to what sounds like solo cello playing a heartbeat motif.

"Atmosfera religiosa" is bells and organ.

The "Luna Park" theme returns as "Valzerina con voce", a lovely song with wordless vocals and accordion.

"Temino popolare" wouldn’t be out of place in a Nino Rota Fellini score.

The female vocalist from "Valzerina con voce" returns in "Paura e sensualità" to add sensuality while other instruments do the fear.

"Tarantella" is a kind of dance, with a marchy feel to it, I guess. This made me think the military was mobilizing to repel Godzilla.

The "Luna Park" theme gets various workouts, as a lounge, as a fox trot, or just whistled, and several of the other cues are repeated in different variations as well.

The CD concludes with the two sides of the single. First the lush, orchestral take on the theme first heard in Luna Park and then a different vocal version of the same, with a 1920s feel and instrumentation, called "Fanny e Michel".