Pino Donaggio is one of the great Italian composers often forgotten or obscured by more high-sounding names. Yet, along with names such as Umiliani, Piccioni, Rota, Rustichelli, he deserves a place of honor alongside the Master that the whole world envies us: Ennio Morricone.
A singer-songwriter of a notable fame in the ‘60s, he becames a soundtracks composer by pure chance when, at the beginning of the ’70s, while walking in front of the Venice station one morning he was noticed by a producer who commissioned him the score for "Don’t look now" (1973, awkwardlytranslated into Italian as “A Venezia… un dicembre rosso shocking”), by English director Nicolas Roeg. His initial skepticism immediately collapsed in front of the beauty of “John’s Theme (Love scene)”.
This is therefore a wonderful debut in the world of soundtracks for Pino Donaggio, who here created a series of many short classical-symphonic themes – some of which recurring – that perfectly describe the romantic and mysterious atmosphere of Venice during the Winter season. The success of the film opened to Donaggio the doors for an international level career: he wrote in fact many soundtracks for Brian De Palma and Joe Dante’s movies, for example.
The soundtrack of “A Venezia …” has been reissued several times over the years, but this edition is the first ever faithful to the original in every aspect.