THE ORSON WELLES/A. F. LAVAGNINO COLLABORATION (THE MERCHANT OF VENICE/FALSTAFF/OTHELLO) Music Composed by Angelo Francesco Lavagnino Alhambra A 9043
The eleventh CD in Alhambra Records` series with scores composed by Angelo Francesco Lavagnino is devoted to his collaboration with the legendary American director Orson Welles and above all presents the world premiere release of the score for the medium-length unreleased and unfinished 1969 TV movie THE MERCHANT OF VENICE – both as complete original recording in stereo and as a re-recorded suite which was performed live at the Venice Film Festival in September 2015 by the Orchestra Classica di Alessandria conducted by Roberto Granata – as well as partly unreleased excerpts from the original recording of FALSTAFF from 1965 and three tracks from OTHELLO from 1951. The common denominator of these three works is that all of them were Shakespeare adaptations. Each of these assignments was an exciting challenge for Lavagnino as besides incorporating authentic musical sounds and colours of the historical periods it gave him the chance to experiment and to find unconventional and often quite unique musical solutions with great artistic creativity.
By listening to the various Lavagnino interview parts (English translations of them can be found in the booklet) which we have attached as bonus tracks at the end of the CD it becomes evident that the relationship between composer and director was characterised by great confidence and mutual respect.
For OTHELLO Lavagnino and Welles worked closely together for many months to find an adequate and unconventional musical approach which would match the bold framings and the brilliant expressionist visual style of the film. Even today Lavagnino´s wild mixture of medieval and modernistic sounds for a small ensemble of 16 musicians and 20 choristers is compelling and we have chosen three tracks from the original recording for this CD.
The score for FALSTAFF in 1965, which was partly based on medieval songs and dances, had to be written in only eight days. The main theme which is heard in the Main Title Apertura festosa is a vigorous martial march whereas for the famous Battle of Shrewsbury sequence Lavagnino used music in a contrapuntal way and wrote a kind of musical requiem intoned by a choir of female sopranos. Particularly notable among the previously unreleased tracks are the rhythmically exciting music for the Attack on the Pilgrims, the noble theme dominated by oboe and viola for the tormented and weary King Henry IV´s Soliloquy and the sombre march for The King´s Funeral.
Welles´ last Shakespeare adaptation THE MERCHANT OF VENICE from 1969 had originally been conceived as a 40-minute episode of the CBS TV special “Orson´s Bag”. Long considered lost and unfinished as the last of four reels had not been shot by Welles in 1969, a restored version with 36 minutes was shown at the Venice Film Festival in September 2015. Lavagnino wrote and recorded the short original score which is only about 15 minutes long in just 2-3 days. He didn´t even want any fee from Welles, but in the end received 12 paintings of various Shakespeare characters which Welles had drawn on the back of his cigar boxes – a few of them can now be seen on the cover and within the booklet of our CD. Lavagnino wrote a sprightly tarantella and festive brass music to capture the mood of the setting as well as lovely theme for Shylock´s daughter Jessica which is heard in various instrumentations. For the suite re-recording on our CD, composer and conductor Roberto Granata has arranged and partly expanded the original score in an excellent manner to give it a new life.
This exciting CD project has only been possible thanks to the generous support of the three daughters of the composer – Bianca, Iudica and Alessandra Lavagnino –, who provided us with original master tape of THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. Our thanks also go to Luciano Girardengo – the director of the Lavagnino Festival in Gavi – and composer-conductor Roberto Granata who allowed us to use the newly recorded suite of THE MERCHANT OF VENICE for this CD.
Our CD edition which contains a 20-page booklet with extensive liner notes and numerous stills from the movies will be limited to 300 copies. The CD wil be released here in germany end of next week and can be pre-prdered at SAE during the next few days.
Track listing:
The Merchant of Venice (1969) 01. Jessica‘ s Theme 1:01 02. Tarantella 2:25 03. Carnival of Venice 1:26 04. Jessica‘ s Theme (Lute Version) 1:54 05. The Harpsichord in Antonio‘ s House – Sunset in Venice 2:13 06. The Garden at Night – Jessica‘ s Theme 0:48 07. Acrobats 2:00
The Merchant of Venice (1969) – BONUS TRACKS 08. Percussion Source Music #1 1:06 09. Percussion Source Music #2 1:10 10. Percussion Source Music #3 1:15
The Merchant of Venice (1969 / 2015) 11. “The Merchant of Venice” Suite (new recording) 22:20
Falstaff (1965) 12. Intermezzo Grottesco (Alternate Version) (from “Falstaff”) * 1:05 13. Apertura Festosa (from “Falstaff”) 1:20 14. Intermezzo Agreste (from “Falstaff”) 3:07 15. Ricercare Rusticano (from “Falstaff”) 2:47 16. Falstaff (Attack on the Pilgrims) * 1:34 17. Battaglia e Campo di Morte (from “Falstaff”) 4:45 18. Falstaff (The King´s Soliloquy) * 2:42 19. Falstaff (Antica Cantica D’Amore – Alternate Version) 1:09 20. Falstaff (The King´s Funeral) * 1:40 21. Falstaff (End Cast) * 0:59
* = previously unreleased
Othello (1951) 22. Funeral 3:28 23. Main Title 1:08 24. Finale 1:04
Interview Segments with A. F. Lavagnino 25. About the collaboration with Orson Welles 0:50 Randall Larson‘ s interview recorded by Alessandro Panuccio in Rome on June 26, 1984 26. About the first encounter with Orson Welles 3:30 Interview recorded 1980, musicista per film, interview by Enrico Ghezzi/Marco Giusti 27. About the music for the battle sequence in „Falstaff“ 3:53 Interview recorded 1986, interview by Enrico Ghezzi 28. About the music for „Merchant of Venice“ 6:44 Interview recorded 1986, interview by Enrico Ghezzi
You can listen to various excerpts from our CD in this video:
With these new cues from Falstaff in addition to the original album, do we now have the complete score or was some stuff lost?
No, everything which had been recorded was available on the original master tapes from Sugar which we had at our disposal. But to present the complete FALSTAFF score as well as all the other scores and the interviews on the CD we would have needed two CDs. Our single CD now has a duration of about 79 minutes! So our intention was to present a suite of about 20 minutes from FALSTAFF whereas THE MERCHANT OF VENICE is the complete score on the CD. There were a few additional short snippets on the FALSTAFF tapes - for example trumpet signals/short fanfares with 20-30 seconds - which we did not use for the CD, but we have selected all of the musically essential tracks which had not been not on the earlier CAM album. For the CAM album often two or three cues from very different places in the film were edited together or a a few shorter dance pieces were repeated to make the LP/CD track longer. Also not all tracks of the original FALSTAFF recording appear in the film, some were put into different scenes than the ones for which they had originally been composed and some get also just repeated several times in the film itself.
Essential release. This includes an "expanded" edition of Falstaff for those who own the CAM release and one brand new soundtrack. I think I had one short re-recorded suite from OTHELLO and a few tracks resulting from movie -> audio transfer, but from the original recording it must be the first time!
Essential release. This includes an "expanded" edition of Falstaff for those who own the CAM release and one brand new soundtrack. I think I had one short re-recorded suite from OTHELLO and a few tracks resulting from movie -> audio transfer, but from the original recording it must be the first time!
The original recording of OTHELLO is hard to get by nowadays as only the restored version of the film from 1992 with the re-recorded score - by which the daughters of the composer were very disappointed as the orignal score manuscript which exists in Italy had not been consulted at all at that time in 1992 and so there were many mistakes in the re-recording - has been shown throughout the world within the last few decades. Orson Welles´daughter did not permit it that the original version could be shown anymore. Only now she has given in and as far as I know the new US Blu-Ray edition which has been released just a few weeks ago does also finally have the original version again.
Essential release. This includes an "expanded" edition of Falstaff for those who own the CAM release and one brand new soundtrack. I think I had one short re-recorded suite from OTHELLO and a few tracks resulting from movie -> audio transfer, but from the original recording it must be the first time!
The original recording of OTHELLO is hard to get by nowadays as only the restored version of the film from 1992 with the re-recorded score - by which the daughters of the composer were very disappointed as the orignal score manuscript which exists in Italy had not been consulted at all at that time in 1992 and so there were many mistakes in the re-recording - has been shown throughout the world within the last few decades. Orson Welles´daughter did not permit it that the original version could be shown anymore. Only now she has given in and as far as I know the new US Blu-Ray edition which has been released just a few weeks ago does also finally have the original version again.
That 90s score re-recording was not good and harmed the picture, IMO. As well as being a quite lifeless and un-atmospheric recording in general, I kept hearing the Korg M1 sampled piano preset being used - an instrument I'd used myself previously. That took me out of the film quite a bit. Maddening!
I finally picked up this cd and I can hugely recommend it, although THE MERCHANT OF VENICE score is short every piece is a delight, hugely atmospheric in line with the film's period setting, the period pieces superbly done and there is a gorgeous love theme - the sound quality is also better than I expected. Also the 20 odd minute recently recorded suite is great and presents the music in even better sound quality and expands on some of the tracks. The music from FALSTAFF on the cd presents a good selection of themes from this score, and the additional music not published before is well worth having. Again Lavagnino has captured the feeling of the period setting of the movie beautifully, this is an enchanting score but also one that has its power such as the battle sequence music. Hopefully we will get the complete score on 1 cd soon. OTHELLO does not fare so well on the sound quality but one can hear straight away that the original recording has much more power than Varese re recording, this is truly ominous sounding music! Anyone remotely interested in score from films with an historical setting should snap up this release.
1. Has anyone worked out the proper sequence of cues, and what to add from the older CAM CD to these Falstaff cues, to result in the complete score?
2. Though it doesn't mark them as being previously unreleased, I think this might be the premiere of those three cues from the original Othello recording -- is that true? All I can find elsewhere is the re-recorded released by Varese.
1. Has anyone worked out the proper sequence of cues, and what to add from the older CAM CD to these Falstaff cues, to result in the complete score?
The 10 tracks from FALSTAFF which are on our Alhambra CD have all been sequenced in correct film order. However, these are the tracks which are only on the CAM CD (I have included the M numbers so that you can see that often two or more cues from different parts of the movie have been edited together for the old CAM album and it is not that easy to put everything in chronological order):
3. VECCHIO ARIOSO (01:44) M 39 4. FUNERALE DI FALSTAFF (02:31) M 45 + M 53 5. TROMBE E TAMBURI AL CASTELLO (01:41) M 33-1 + M33-2 + M 52 + M 35 7. ANTICA CANTICA D'AMORE (01:50) M 42 (the alternate, shorter version of this cue is track 19 on the Alhambra CD) 8. CORALE MISTICO (03:13) M 49 9. DANZA DI TAVERNA (01:49) M 41 10. PASTORALE SERENA (01:39) M 40 11. FESTA DI VILLAGGIO (01:48) M 21 13. INTERMEZZO GROTTESCO (01:05) M 1 (the alternate version of this track is the first one on the Alhambra CD) 14. CANTARE ARCAICO I° (02:12) M 3 + M 24 15. CANTARE ARCAICO II° (02:17) M 4 + M 14 16. CHANSON A BOIRE I° (01:38) M 22 17. CHANSON A BOIRE II° (01:17) M 46 18. CANTO DI VEGLIA AL CAMPO (02:34) M 32 + M 26 19. ALLEGRE CORNAMUSE (01:13) M 23
There were still a few shorter tracks on the masters from Sugar which are neither on the Alhambra nor on the CAM CD. So if you add all the tracks on the two CDs it´s still not quite the complete score.
2. Though it doesn't mark them as being previously unreleased, I think this might be the premiere of those three cues from the original Othello recording -- is that true? All I can find elsewhere is the re-recorded released by Varese.
Those three cues from the original recording of OTHELLO have indeed never been previously released on LP or CD.
Thanks Stefan! Two more questions then: any hope of a complete Falstaff release at some point, since the tapes survive? And: does any more of the Othello original recording survive in releasable sound quality, or were these three cues all that could really be salvaged?
The future of the CAM catalogue is totally uncertain at the moment as end of June - mabye you have also read it here on this board - Sugar in Italy has entered into partnership with UMG to exploit the CAM catalogue worldwide via Decca Records. We all don´t know what this will mean for the individual CD labels and if any scores can be licensed in future from Sugar at all. We all have to wait and see what Sugar really intends to do.
Nothing has been preserved of the original recording of OTHELLO - not even in the Lavagnino estate. You have to consider that this music was composed in 1951 - from that time just nothing is available anymore in the estate. Therefore we had to take these three tracks on the CD from the film itself - otherwise it would have not been possible to present any track of this original recording at all. We had some luck that there are different versions of the film in various countries. In one version the music of the Main Title is played as End Title music and could therefore be used without the usual commentary which in all other versions is spoken by Welles himself during the Main Title credits.
