Alessandro Alessandroni

Alessandro Alessandroni (18 March 1925 – 26 March 2017) was an Italian musician and composer. He played multiple instruments, including the guitar, mandolin, mandolincello, sitar, accordion and piano, and composed more than 40 film scores and countless library music.

Alessandro Alessandroni
Born(1925-03-18)18 March 1925
Rome, Italy
Died26 March 2017(2017-03-26) (aged 92)
Swakopmund, Namibia [1]
GenresFilm score
Occupation(s)Musician, composer
InstrumentsGuitar, mandolin, sitar, accordion, piano, whistling, mandolincello
Years active1936–2017
Associated actsEnnio Morricone, Piero Umiliani, Edda Dell'Orso, Nora Orlandi, Gianna Spagnuolo

Biography

Alessandroni collaborated with his childhood friend Ennio Morricone on a number of soundtracks for Spaghetti Westerns. Morricone's orchestration often calls for an unusual combination of instruments, voices, and whistling. Alessandroni's twangy guitar riff is central to the main theme for The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Alessandroni can be heard as the whistler on the soundtracks for Sergio Leone's films, including A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, Once Upon a Time in the West, and Pervirella.[2] He also collaborated with Morricone in scoring the 1974 film Around the World with Peynet's Lovers.[3]

Alessandroni founded the octet vocal group I Cantori Moderni (English: The Modern Choristers) in 1961.[4] The group, which included his wife, Giulia De Mutiis, performed wordless vocals on several Italian movie soundtracks.[5] Most notably, I Cantori Moderni are featured on the song "Mah Nà Mah Nà", written by Piero Umiliani for the 1968 Luigi Scattini mondo film Sweden: Heaven and Hell (Italian: Svezia, inferno e paradiso) and popularized on The Muppet Show.[6]

Alessandro has also composed film scores, including Any Gun Can Play (1967), Johnny Hamlet (1968), The Reward's Yours... The Man's Mine (1969), Lady Frankenstein (1971), The Devil's Nightmare (1971), The Mad Butcher (1971), Seven Hours of Violence (1973), Poker in Bed (1974), White Fang and the Hunter (1975), Blood and Bullets (1976), L'adolescente (1976), La professoressa di scienze naturali (1976), The Opening of Misty Beethoven (1976), Women's Camp 119 (1977), Killer Nun (1978), L'imbranato (1979), and Trinity Goes East (1998).

References
  1. "Maestro Alessandroni passes away at Swakop". namibian.com.na. Retrieved 9 June 2020.
  2. Alessandro Alessandroni interviewed by Tim Fife for Cinema Suicide (in English)
  3. "Bordighera Personaggi, Raymond Peynet". Bordighera Official Website. Retrieved 6 December 2020.
  4. Gordon, Kylee Swenson (1 May 2012). Electronic Musician Presents the Recording Secrets Behind 50 Great Albums. Backbeat Books. ISBN 9781476821368.
  5. Adinolfi, Francesco (4 April 2008). Mondo Exotica: Sounds, Visions, Obsessions of the Cocktail Generation. Duke University Press. ISBN 0822389088.
  6. "R.I.P. Italian Soundtrack Great Alessandro Alessandroni". exclaim.ca. Retrieved 11 February 2018.


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