Campa Carogna la Taglia Cresce

Nico Fidenco like many other Italian composers that were active during the 1960,s and thru to the mid to late eighties, scored his fair share of Italian made westerns. Fidenco had a distinct and haunting sound which was all his own and even though he utilized many of the stock sounds and musical trademarks that were associated with the genre of THE SPAGHETTI WESTERN, it was the way in which Fidenco put these sounds etc together and developed them that gave him such a individual musical voice on each and every production he was associated with. Like one can tell straight away if a movie has a score by Morricone, one also knows instinctively if a film has music by Fidenco. My first encounter with Nico Fidenco was on I WANT HIM DEAD, I by accident ordered the LP which also contained two other western scores by him. As soon as I heard these scores I was hooked on his style and approach to writing western music, thus many other albums followed not all westerns, as the composers was at home scoring many exciting and diverse genres. This particular soundtrack has been on my wants list for a while, mainly because of the theme song WIND IN MY FACE, performed by Stephen Boyd, ok I am not saying it’s a western classic or in the same league as any number of other songs penned for sage brush sagas both Italian or Hollywood produced, but its certainly got an original sound to it and is an interesting and entertaining little ditty. The remainder of the score is if I dare say it, fairly typical of Fidenco, if typical is a word one can use to describe the composers music. Fidenco had a knack of getting things so right when it came to westerns, he created one or two driving and infectious principal themes on which he built the remainder of his score and CAMPA CAROGNA LA TAGLIA CRESCE is no exception to that winning formula. He often combined racing timpani or snare drums with minimal use of strings, brass, woodwind, wordless female vocal, whistler, choir, electric guitar and harmonica to create some of the genres best known themes and soundtracks. This particular score is I think one of the composers best, purely because he has penned so many differing thematic properties which all fit in well alongside the core theme from the work. Fidenco surrounded himself with the best musicians and artists of the time, Alessandroni, Nora Orlandi, Franco De Gemini and Edda Dell Orso. He also had a long and fruitful collaboration with Edda,s husband, Giacamo Dell Orso, who was responsible for conducting and arranging the majority of the composers film scores, Dell Orso I suppose was to Fidenco what Nicolai was to Morricone, the only difference being that their partnership lasted longer. This is a must have compact disc, for Spaghetti Western fans and also Fidenco followers. BEAT have done a superb job of re mastering and have also presented the CD wonderfully. The fold out liner info contains a brief but interesting description of the music by Fidenco and some colourful art work from the movie. Again a great release from BEAT. Recommended.