KAPÒ

Digitmovies proudly presents on CD the complete OST by Carlo Rustichelli (Carpi, 1916 - Rome, 2004) for “Kapò” directed in 1960 by Gillo Pontecorvo (also collaborator to the music score). For this particular story (Edith, a young jewish girl locked up in a nazi prison camp, after assuming the new identity as Nicole becomes a ”Kapo”, a prisoner’s guard working for the Germans) M°Rustichelli has written a symphonic score based on a classic style adagio for harpsichord (the instrument the girl had learnt to play before the imprisoning) that is alternated from melancholic to mysterious themes to represent all the gloomy and sad atmosphere of the prison camp. Carlo Rustichelli has written a main theme introduced by harpsichord, played by violent glissè of French horns (tr.1), while the fate of the prisoners is emphasized by a march theme (tr.5, tr.8), also reprised in a slower version for strings tremolo (tr.7) and in a faster one (tr.9).For the character Edith/Nicole, the author has written a nostalgic theme to describe the sweet fragility of the young girl in comparison of that horrible place in which she imprisoned against her will. This theme appears for the first time in tr.3 (a version for guitar and orchestra) and reprised on tr.12, tr.14 and tr.28 (harpsichord version). Pure anguish atmospheres are given by dramatic music in tr.6, tr.11,tr.13, tr.15, tr.16, tr.22, tr.24. Other important themes can be found in this OST: like the one with sacred flavour that describes the moving meeting between the Russian male and female prisoners (tr.20) and the music for the stone quarry given by a slow epic use of the brass (tr.23). The score is enriched by “source music”: marches (tr. 2 and tr.10), solo percussions (tr.19), lounge style radio music (tr.25), vocal tracks performed by female choir (tr.18) and solo female voice (tr.41) (their wrong takes are enclosed in tr.45, as a curiosity). In year 1960 Rca released a 45 rpm E.P. ( EPA 30 - 389) with a suite (in mono sound) divided in two parts prepared by M° Rustichelli himself. The only CD edition (with stereo sound for the first time) was released by the Cinevox label in 1991, containing 25’ from “Kapo’ ” and other 25’ from the 1969 comedy war movie “Rosolino Paterno soldato”, also scored by Carlo Rustichelli. Recently, at the Cinevox Archives, we could discover all the stereophonic master tapes (in very good conditions) of the 1960 recording session. This gave us the possibility (also thanks to the music cues sheet, where all movie scenes and their music timings were all annotated) to reconstruct and to restore the complete score in chronological order and in full stereo. This CD is enriched by several alternate takes (in stereo) and a short suite (also in stereo) of the 1960 recording session with recording room sounds, wrong takes, rehearsals and with the voices of M° Carlo Rustichelli, M° Franco Ferrara and of the copyst/studio contractor Donato Salone. For a matter of completeness, after several searches we could find the mono master tape assembled for the original 1960 45 rpm EP (for the first absolute time on CD) that brings the total length of our CD to about 74 minutes. Despite of the careful digital restoration and remastering, some anomalies pre-existing on the original sources could have remained.