MOVIE MUSIC UK

Composer, arranger and conductor Riz Ortolani died in Rome on January 23, 2014, at the age of 87, following complications from bronchitis.

One of the most prolific figures in Italian film music, Ortolani scored more than 200 films and television productions during a career spanning five decades, moving effortlessly between documentaries, romantic dramas, spaghetti westerns, war films, thrillers, horror and exploitation cinema. His international breakthrough came with Mondo Cane, whose theme “More” became a worldwide standard.

Riziero Ortolani was born in Pesaro, Italy, on March 25, 1926. Encouraged by his musically inclined father, he studied at the Conservatorio Gioachino Rossini in Pesaro and subsequently worked as an orchestral musician, arranger and bandleader. He joined Italian state broadcaster RAI and during the 1950s led his own jazz orchestra, which also performed in the United States. His background in jazz, popular music and classical orchestration would become central to the remarkable stylistic versatility of his film scores.

Ortolani became a full-time film composer with the controversial documentary Mondo Cane (1962), directed by Gualtiero Jacopetti, Paolo Cavara and Franco Prosperi. Working with Nino Oliviero, he wrote a strikingly lush and melodic score whose beauty often provided an ironic contrast to the film’s deliberately shocking imagery. Its central melody became the song “More,” with English lyrics by Norman Newell, and quickly escaped the confines of the film. It was recorded by artists including Frank Sinatra, Andy Williams, Shirley Bassey and The Supremes, won a Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Theme, and received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song.

The success of Mondo Cane immediately opened international doors. Ortolani scored films including The 7th Dawn (1964), Old Shatterhand (1964) and Anthony Asquith’s star-studded The Yellow Rolls-Royce (1964). The latter produced another major song, “Forget Domani,” which won the Golden Globe for Best Original Song, while Ortolani’s score received a separate Golden Globe nomination. He subsequently worked on The Glory Guys (1965), The Spy with a Cold Nose (1966), Vittorio De Sica’s Woman Times Seven (1967), The Chastity Belt (1967), Anzio (1968) and Buona Sera, Mrs. Campbell (1968).

At the same time, Ortolani became an important voice in the Italian western. His scores included Day of Anger (1967), Beyond the Law (1968), The Hunting Party (1971) and A Reason to Live, a Reason to Die (1972). Unlike Ennio Morricone’s often deliberately eccentric approach to the genre, Ortolani frequently retained a more traditionally symphonic foundation, combining expansive melodies and powerful orchestral writing with electric guitars, percussion and contemporary popular influences. The driving theme from Day of Anger later enjoyed renewed prominence when Quentin Tarantino used it in Django Unchained.

Ortolani also maintained his association with Jacopetti and Prosperi, scoring the controversial documentaries Africa Addio (1966), Addio Zio Tom (1971) and Mondo Candido (1975). His music often provided these films with an unexpectedly beautiful counterpoint to disturbing imagery, a technique that became one of his trademarks. That same quality can be heard in some of his later exploitation scores, most notoriously Ruggero Deodato’s Cannibal Holocaust (1980), where an extraordinarily gentle main theme contrasts sharply with the film’s extreme violence. He also scored Deodato’s The House on the Edge of the Park that same year.

His other notable credits included The McKenzie Break (1970), The Valachi Papers (1972), Seven Blood-Stained Orchids (1972), The Fifth Musketeer (1979) and From Hell to Victory (1979). Beginning in the late 1970s he also developed a lengthy collaboration with director Pupi Avati, ultimately composing music for some 25 of Avati’s films and television productions over 35 years. Their work together continued almost until Ortolani’s death and included Ma quando arrivano le ragazze?, for which he won the David di Donatello for Best Music.

Outside cinema Ortolani wrote concert music, including a symphony and ballet, and remained active as a conductor. His film music also found an enthusiastic new audience through later filmmakers who rediscovered Italian genre scores; Tarantino used Ortolani’s music in both Kill Bill and Django Unchained. In 2013, only months before his death, Ortolani received the World Soundtrack Awards’ Lifetime Achievement Award, placing him alongside the acknowledged masters of Italy’s golden age of film music.

Ortolani is survived by his wife, singer Katyna Ranieri, whom he married in 1956, and their family.