Carlo Rustichelli

From the late 1940s onward, Carlo Rustichelli emerged as a central presence in Italian cinema scoring. He entered the world in Modena in 1916, completed his musical studies in Bologna and Rome, and first contributed to films during the final years of the 1930s. Only after another decade, once director Pietro Germi began calling on him repeatedly, did scoring become his primary occupation. Germi praised the steady flow of inventive melodies that carried distinct Italian character through shifting styles and forms, likening the output to “a music barrel which never dries up.”

Rustichelli ultimately supplied music for hundreds of productions, several dozen of which reached wide American audiences; these include Germi’s Oscar-winning Divorce -- Italian Style (1961) and Seduced and Abandoned (1964) as well as Arthur Lubin’s Arabian Nights fantasy The Thief of Baghdad (1960). Italian labels issued many of the soundtracks on vinyl, and a focused campaign of reissues appeared during the closing phase of the LP era. By the close of the twentieth century Rustichelli was regarded in Italy as a distinguished figure in both music and film. In 2001 the Italy-based CAM label released the overview collection Ritratto di un Autore, accompanied by a note written by the composer himself. Separate compact discs also preserve complete versions of several landmark scores, among them Seduced and Abandoned.