QUEIMADA (REISSUE)

Quartet Records, in collaboration with EMI Music Publishing, presents a remastered reissue of Ennio Morricone’s impressive, epic score for Gillo Pontecorvo’s ambitious, slavery-condemning 1969 production QUEIMADA (aka BURN!), starring Marlon Brando. The film tells the story of a British mercenary who in 1844 helped the slaves of an Antilles island colony revolt and gain independence for the island from Portugal, but later returned to hunt down a local rebel leader and former protégé.

Because they previously worked together with great success on THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS, the next collaboration between Morricone and Pontecorvo was eagerly awaited. The composer rose to the occasion, writing a monumental score, led by the freedom hymn “Aboliçao”, a kind of beat Luba-mass. The music of QUEIMADA is characterized by its rich textures, dramatic contrasts, and a fusion of European, African, and Latin American elements. Morricone avoids falling into decorative folklore, instead creating a deeply emotional score, using both traditional orchestra and choir, organ, tribal percussion, electric guitars and Hammond organ, generating a fascinating hybrid soundscape.

In 1969, only a 45-rpm single was released in Italy and France with the hit “Aboliçao.” The score was not released on LP until 1971 when United Artists Records issued it in the U.S .and Japan. The CD has had different editions in Italy, from a weird selection of just nine cues on the ViviMusica label, along with some spaghetti western themes, to a first expanded edition of 26 cues in 2001 and the complete 31-cue score in 2012, both by GDM. This is a reissue of the latter, supervised by Dániel Winkler and Claudio Fuiano, and completely restored, edited and remastered by Chris Malone from the original master tapes. The package includes in-depth liner notes by Miguel Ángel Órdóñez.