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Remembering Angelo Francesco Lavagnino, 1909-1987
Composer Angelo Francesco Lavagnino died ten years ago today in Gavi, Italy, on August 21, 1987, at the age of 78.
One of the most prolific and versatile figures in post-war Italian film music, Lavagnino wrote scores for more than 200 films across almost every conceivable genre, from documentaries and comedies to historical epics, westerns and science fiction. Internationally he was best known for his work on Orson Welles’s Othello and Chimes at Midnight, as well as Legend of the Lost, The Naked Maja, Gorgo and Conspiracy of Hearts.
Lavagnino was born in Genoa on February 22, 1909. He studied violin at the Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory in Milan, where he subsequently pursued composition under teachers including Renzo Bossi and Vito Frazzi. Before entering cinema he wrote extensively for the concert hall, including chamber and symphonic music, sacred works and the opera Malafonte. From 1948 until 1963 he also taught film music at the prestigious Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena.
His first important film assignment came through Orson Welles, composing music with Alberto Barberis for Othello, filmed over several years and released internationally in the early 1950s. Lavagnino’s dark, archaic-sounding music immediately demonstrated his ability to evoke historical atmosphere without relying simply on conventional orchestral romanticism. More than a decade later Welles invited him back for Chimes at Midnight (1965), for which Lavagnino adapted and recreated early musical forms to accompany Welles’s celebrated portrait of Falstaff. Read more…
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