Noi Lazzaroni

Digitmovies is proud to release a rarity by Ennio Morricone for the first time on CD complete and in full stereo: the OST from the TV series "Noi lazzaroni" (aka "We Rascals") based on the novel by Saverio Strati, which was broadcast by RAI Television in 1978. The series was directed by Giorgio Pelloni and starred Nicola Pinto, Carla Calò, Mico Cundari, Salvatore Puntillo, Mariella, LoGiudice, Magda Guerrero, Monica Proietti and Leopoldo Trieste. This TV programme was a Milano Cinema production realized by G. Palumbo. Saverio Strati, born in Sant'Agata del Bianco (Reggio Calabria) in 1924, began writing in 1952 after having worked as a bricklayer, then self-taught and pupil of Giacomo Debenedetti at the University of Messina. He is an author of numerous novels and stories with a social background, set mainly in Calabria. Strati did occupy himself with the rescuing of fairytales and folk tales handed down through the oral tradition in Calabria and also issued a compilation where he took care of the translation from Calabrian to Italian. "Noi lazzaroni" (the title refers to "rascal" emigrants for having abandoned their home-land) talks about the human condition of the emigrant who did not succeed to integrate himself within the new society, the political disappointment about the post-war promises which were never kept, and the memory of the father and his life lessons. In 1978 C.A.M. had printed a stereo 33 rpm album (SAG 9086) with nine tracks and a duration of 31:26 minutes. Thanks to the friends at C.A.M. we were able to use - in addition to the stereo master tape of the original album - the complete stereo master tapes of the original recording session which have allowed us to discover extra music so that we can now release a CD with a duration of 63:16 minutes. Ennio Morricone has been able to fully represent in his music all the deeper meanings of Strati' s novel by creating a very "rural" score with the sounds that represent the life of the protagonist. Although integrated within modern society, the soul of this man is always directed to his past, to his land, to the teachings of his father which he could never leave behind. This adherence to the homeland is expressed through deliberately wild and almost enraged vocal performances of Edda Dell'Orso (Tr.1,Tr.2,Tr.9,Tr.17), so far away from her sweet and lyrical performance style in certain OSTs like "C'era una volta il west" or "Giù la testa". Here the vocals are rather screams of desperate loneliness which come from the soul of a man divided by two inseparable social realities, his present and his past. Ennio Morricone has composed music which reflects the bucolic atmosphere of this tale and the relationship between the emigrant man and his native country through a series of archaically flavoured themes played by instruments like recorder and mandolin. Among the recurrent themes there are a mysterious motif in the style of "Indagine su un cittadino.." (Tr.3,Tr.6), dramatic music for dissonant strings (Tr.4), a lounge theme with the typical Morricone sound which describes the emigrant's new life in modern society (Tr.5). The main theme is reprised for recorder and guitar (Tr.7) and there is Baroque music for the puppet theater played by woodwinds and percussions (Tr.8). The rest of our CD contains nine bonus tracks, unreleased alternate takes of the original album versions which will surely be quite attractive for fans and scholars of the music of Ennio Morricone.