Ennio Morricone

Beat Records is relaunching on CD the classic OST by Ennio Morricone for the Gothic horror film Amanti d'oltretomba (Nightmare castle), directed in 1965 by Mario Caiano, starring Barbara Steele, Rick Battaglia, Paul Müller, Helga Liné, Marino Masè, Giuseppe Addobbati, and Lawrence Clift. For Muriel, Morricone wrote a theme introduced on piano (played by the protagonist in some scenes in the film) and developed for the orchestra, "Amanti D'oltretomba"), then reprised in the finale. A gothic atmosphere is created by the solemnity of a liturgical organ, and the spirits from beyond the grave are represented by music for dissonant strings with trumpet interventions and fragments of the main theme for piano. A theme for Muriel's restless ghost is represented by female voices from the Cantori Moderni, and a magma of experimental sounds creates an infernal atmosphere for the story's damned souls. This CD assembly, with a total duration of 39:24, was derived from the original mono and stereo session tapes and originally approved by Maestro Morricone himself.