Piero Piccioni
Highest Rated: 96% Mafioso (1962)
Lowest Rated: 14% Camille 2000 (1969)
Birthday: Dec 6, 1921
Birthplace: Turin, Piedmont, Italy
One of the most prolific composers from the golden age of Italian film soundtracks, Piero Piccioni scored nearly 200 films between 1953 and 1998. Although Piccioni had grown up in a musical family, and had even formed one of Italy's first jazz orchestras prior to World War II, the Turin native was working as a lawyer in Rome in the early 1950s when he first came into contact with the thriving postwar film industry; noted director Michelangelo Antonioni suggested he provide a jazz score for a friend's documentary. From that casual beginning, Piccioni quickly became nearly as much in demand as his contemporaries Ennio Morricone and Piero Umiliani. His jazz background, which quickly grew to include a strong bossa nova element as that Brazilian style became internationally popular in the early 1960s, strongly colors his scores, making his style reminiscent of American contemporaries like Nelson Riddle and Henry Mancini; though many of the films he scored are at best charming period pieces, his soundtrack albums garner a high price on the collectors' market, and even many of his most obscure film scores have been reissued or bootlegged over the years. His career highlights include a special Italy-only score for Jean-Luc Godard's "Contempt," the Peter Sellers caper comedy "After the Fox" (incongruously directed by former neo-realist master Vittorio de Sica), and Lena Wertmuller's 1975 masterpiece "Swept Away."
Filmography
Movies
Credit | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | I Am an ESP | Original Music | - | 1985 |
20% | 47% | Fighting Back | Original Music | - | 1982 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | Catherine and I | Original Music | - | 1980 |
90% | 77% | Eboli | Music | $77.9K | 1979 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | The Witness | Original Music | - | 1978 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | Illustrious Corpses | Original Music | - | 1976 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | Finche c'è guerra c'è speranza | Music | - | 1974 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | The Executioner of God | Original Music | - | 1973 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | Six Bounty Killers for a Massacre | Music | - | 1973 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | The Deserter | Original Music | - | 1971 |
No Score Yet | 70% | Many Wars Ago | Original Music | - | 1970 |
14% | 63% | Camille 2000 | Original Music | - | 1969 |
No Score Yet | 38% | Gatling Gun | Original Music | - | 1968 |
80% | 65% | After the Fox | Original Music | - | 1966 |
91% | 81% | I Knew Her Well | Music | $9.3K | 1966 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | From the Orient With Fury | Original Music | - | 1965 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | Three Faces of a Woman | Original Music | - | 1965 |
No Score Yet | 32% | Minnesota Clay | Original Music | - | 1965 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | It's a Hard Life | Original Music | - | 1964 |
96% | 80% | Mafioso | Original Music | $398.6K | 1962 |
No Score Yet | 87% | Hands Over the City | Original Music | - | 1962 |
86% | 67% | The Grim Reaper | Original Music | - | 1962 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | Black Soul | Music | - | 1962 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | Roaring Years | Original Music | - | 1962 |
No Score Yet | 87% | The Assassin | Music | - | 1961 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | Il bell'Antonio | Original Music | - | 1960 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | Bad Girls Don't Cry | Original Music | - | 1960 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | Sweet Deceptions | Original Music | - | 1960 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | Boys of the Parioli | Original Music | - | 1959 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | Tempest | Original Music | - | 1958 |