La Cuccagna. Ennio Morricone
Rossella (Donatella Turri) is a young girl looking for work. With her diploma she goes around Rome answering numerous ads, but she will soon discover that the "cuccagna", or the economic miracle, is just an illusion and the world is much more ruthless than she could have believed. However, fate makes her meet Giuliano (Luigi Tenco), the only man capable of changing her life.
It was the fifth or sixth score in Morricone’s career, written when he was just 33. The theme “Il Ritorno a Casa,” is initially a little introspective, with darkly-hued strings and an occasional harmonica creating a sense of tension. Eventually an acoustic guitar joins the mix, and it slowly becomes a more traditionally orchestral, a warm but bittersweet melody that has an underlying sense of tragedy. Some of the orchestral phrasings remind of Nino Rota’s writing for traditional writing for Fellini, and by the end it is quite lovely. It’s a trivial, unimportant work by Morricone standards, but it’s still fascinating from a historical perspective to see where it all began.