MAFIOSO...And Other Great Piccioni Scores

Piero Piccioni was one of the golden generation of popular Italian composers, emerging in the '50s and early 1960s, whose primary focus was in the creation of film scores.

With the advent of the New Wave and the arrival of the spaghetti western invented by the genre's masters directors, Sergio Leone and Sergio Corbucci, Piccioni, and such contemporaries as Ennio Morricone, Stelvio Cipriani, Bruno Nicolai, Francesco De Masi and Nico Fidenco were propelled onto the international stage.

If Morricone re-wrote the musical language of film, Piccioni also quickly established a unique compositional voice; an impressive, astounding blend of jazz, pop and orchestral styles.

The composer's innate versatility and eclecticism is showcased by the scores featured in this edition. The centrepiece is his music for Alberto Lattuada's Mafioso, a 1962 black comedy starring the great Alberto Sordi for whom Piccioni would eventually write more than fifty film soundtracks. Mafioso is a clever, thought-provoking film that many consider set the standard for every mafia film that would follow

Also featured within our presentation is music from the television documentaries Il Mondo di Notte (The World by Night), a selection of themes from what is arguably Piccioni's most lovely score, Mauro Bolognini's Senilita (Careless) - an intense romance set in Trieste, which finds the lovely Claudia Cardinale alongside a desperate Tony Franciosa.
The finishing touch is the long deleted Piero Piccioni Presenta Lydia MacDonald album. Born in Edinburgh of a Scottish father and an Italian mother, MacDonald - with Edda Dell'Orso and Mina - was one of the composer's favourite female vocalists. She famously performed Mr. Dante Fontana and Richmond Bridge on Fumo di Londra, and her distinctive,
sensual voice illuminated any number of Piccioni's scores.

IL MONDO DI NOTTE NUMERO 2
(THE WORLD BY NIGHT - NUMBER 2) (1962)
1. ROLLERS DERBY
2. QUEBRADA
3. WHEN A LOVE AFFAIR IS THROUGH
ADUA E LE COMPAGNE (HUNGRY FOR LOVE) (1960)
4. OPUS JAZZ (19)
MAFIOSO (1962)
5. MAFIOSO
6. CALAMO
7. SHOE SHINE SAMBA
8. IL DILITTO
9. WHISPERING (SCHONBERGER)
10. AMERICANA
SENILITA (AKA CARELESS) (1962)
11. MUSICA DELLA NOTTE
12. RICERCA E SCOPERTA
13. TEMA DI AMALIA
14. AMORE VANO
15. CHIMERA
16. FINE DI UN SOGNO
GUENDALINA (1957)
17. LO AMO GUENDALINA
L'IMPREVISTO (UNEXPECTED) (1961)
18. L'IMPREVISTO - SEQUENCE 17 (VOCAL)
19. L'IMPREVISTO - SEQUENCE 1 (INSTRUMENTAL)
I MAGLIARI (1959)
20. WAS IT YOU (FINALE) (20 OR 26)
PIERO PICCIONI PRESENTA LYDIA MACDONALD (1962)
21. IT'S YOU OR NO ONE
22. EAST OF THE SUN
23. IT'S TOO DARN HOT
24. THE LADY IS A TRAMP
25. THERE'LL NEVER BE ANOTHER YOU
26. BUT NOT FOR ME
27. THE SONG IS YOU
28. GOODY GOOD BYE
29. THOU SWELL
30. ALL THROUGH THE NIGHT
31. DANCING ON THE CEILING
32. MEAN TO ME