★Recording Arts

On Danger: Diabolik, Ennio Morricone weaponises pop, jazz and electronics into a hyper‑stylised heist engine: fuzz guitars, wordless vocals and mod orchestration turning Mario Bava’s comic‑book caper into a delirious, late‑60s sonic hallucination.

On La cuccagna, Ennio Morricone sketches early‑60s Italian life in miniature: light, bittersweet themes, small‑combo colours and gently ironic swings that mirror a young woman’s fragile hopes inside a consumerist daydream starting to fray.

In La ragazza e il generale, Ennio Morricone threads anti‑war irony through bittersweet melodies and marching figures, mixing folk‑tinged themes, choral snatches and tense orchestration into a score where tenderness and absurdity share the same battlefield.

In Thrilling, Ennio Morricone’s widescreen sense of drama condenses into a tightly wound suite of themes: tense strings, ghostly choirs and razor‑edged rhythm figures that turn suspense into something almost voluptuously atmospheric.

The original soundtrack was presented in two different versions, the initial one being restricted to 15 tracks and 50 minutes because of the limitations of the vinyl format. A so-called special edition saw the light on CD in 1998, adding 25 minutes to the program. It included a long suite which was actually a collage partly repeating previously released music. Combining the album tracks with additional music heard in the movie and removing the duplications, a program of more than 78 minutes was …

There are not enough superlatives to describe Ennio Morricone’s score to "Once Upon a Time in the West". It is considered the best movie soundtrack ever by many. Finally we have the complete score in 31 tracks. 4 of these have never been previously released, 3 have never been released by the Solisti and 3 have been upgraded. It includes a 24 page booklet with critical notes & listener’s guide.