i Giganti della Tessaglia

Digitmovies proudly presents the eighth volume of the Italian Peplum series: The original score by Carlo Rustichelli for the movie “I Giganti della Tessaglia” directed by Riccardo Freda in 1960. Thanks to the support of our friends at C.A.M., in whose archives the complete mono master tapes have been preserved, this wonderful music can now be heard for the first time on CD. Riccardo Freda was one of the foremost directors of the Peplum genre (for example “Spartaco” as early as 1952) and had an artists eye for stylish composition. Unfortunately, for the filming of the saga of Jason and the Argonauts (with the addition of some characters and events from Homer’s Odyssey) in “I Giganti della Tessaglia” he had a small budget at his disposal and a cast of rather unknown actors like Roland Carey (a Swiss-born former theater actor) in the role of muscular, blonde-haired hero Jason, Ziva Rodann as Jason’s wife Creusa and Alberto Farnese as infamous King Adrastus. The only exception to this being Massimo Girotti, one of the stars of the Italian cinema of the 40s, as Thracian singer Orpheus and member of Jason’s crew.It almost seems that because of such faults Maestro Carlo Rustichelli doubled his efforts and composed one of his most extraordinary scores for this Peplum movie. Even Freda himself in a later interview was full of enthusiasm about his composer when he stated: “Carlo Rustichelli remains the best Italian composer because he understands cinema.”. “I Giganti della Tessaglia” did offer Rustichelli lavish scope for musical development, particularly in such long set pieces as the storm at sea (Tr. 3), a simply stunning five-minute piece where orchestra and choir contrapuntally play with parts of the main theme, or Jason’s climbing of a giant statue which wholly depends on the mystic and mysterious sounds of Rustichelli’s underscore (Tr. 23). Most of the music is in an epic, adventurous and even operatic style, which is not surprising if one knows that Rustichelli had been highly activeas an opera conductor before the start of his film career in 1947. He has built his score mainly around the truly majestic main theme, first heard in Tr. 1, for male choir and orchestra and reprised or varied in many other tracks. It characterizes the heroic journey of Jason and his crew and their indefatigable quest for the Golden Fleece. In contrast, the love theme which also appears in the middle part of the Main Title, is a kind of sensual siren song for female choir and strings which musically depicts Jason’s seduction by the witch queen Gaia. It’s melody is a bit reminiscent of David Raksin’s famous “Laura” theme and is taken up again in a more delicately orchestrated version in Tr. 8. A gently pastoral theme with prominent solo clarinet and violin underscores the love relationship between the minor characters Euristeus and Aglaia (Tr. 14). There is also an elegant exotic dance (Tr.17) as well as ceremonial pieces with religious overtones (Tr. 2, Tr. 25). But these are only some of the highlights of Rustichelli’s thematically rich and varied score.Two bonus tracks close the CD: an alternate version of the “Finale” with the choir coming in only at the end of the cue (Tr. 30) and a splendid stereo version of the powerfully orchestrated music for the fight with the Cyclops (who was animated by special effects expert Carlo Rambaldi) which has been possible due to percussions and organ being originally recorded on separate tracks (Tr. 29). Unfortunately, despite careful digital restoration, certain imperfections (distortion in a few tracks) present in the original score elements could not be totally eliminated.