- Composed by Ennio Morricone
- CAM / 31m
Directed by Paolo and Vittorio Taviani, 1979’s Il Prato (which disappointingly means “The Meadow” and not “The Prat”) is about a love triangle that develops after three young Italians try to break away from what they view as an unfair society and set up a new utopia.
Ennio Morricone had previously written a wonderful score for the brothers’ Allonsanfan (a score which includes one of the greatest cues of his career)… and precisely the same description could be applied to Il Prato, even though it is completely different.
In this case “one of the greatest cues of his career” is the score’s main title theme, an astonishingly beautiful piece with a delicate piccolo flute solo playing a magically fluid melody over strings and guitar. The resplendent A-section is repeated twice before the slightly edgier B-section, then two more presentations of the A-section. While the central solo remains largely unchanged between the variations within the piece, it’s fascinating how Morricone builds up the orchestration and then takes it down again. It is just magnificent – full of the composer’s trademark melancholy, just heartbreakingly beautiful.
The classical “Tremo perché ti amo” is a lovely secondary love theme, which suffers slightly from following the sumptuous opening but on its own terms is also really impressive. “La rabbia” takes the B-section of the main theme and bases the cue around it, with dramatic percussive accompaniment (not entirely dissimilar to the famous “Rabbia e tarantella” from Allonsanfan in fact, though in this case the impressionistic flute solo over the top turns it into something different).
“Troppo luce, troppa ombra” takes a fragment of the main theme and builds it into something which clearly conveys emotional turmoil before just a little half-step harmonic leap at the end leaves us on a positive note. A choir appears in the brief “La finestra”, which plays as a kind of heavenly interlude. The standalone “La grande zampogna e il piccolo flauto” is a dramatic piece of what could be source festival music (but knowing Morricone probably isn’t).
Scattered amongst the pieces I’ve highlighted are some variations on them – the main theme in particular gets numerous versions, many of them very different (it sounds quite mournful for the concluding “L’Arno”). The readily-available album of this score – and the one I’ve got – is the 31-minute CAM album (as produced by Morricone at the time of the film) though there was an extended version briefly available from GDM. Sadly the recording quality leaves something to be desired, which is the only stain on an otherwise-impeccable masterpiece – a lesser-known but genuinely essential component of any Morricone collection.
Rating: *****
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