Press Release from Quartet:
Quartet Records, in collaboration with GDM and Universal Music Publishing Ricordi, presents a completely revised, remastered edition of the dynamic, classic score by Ennio Morricone for the 1970 Charles Bronson action vehicle CITTA’ VIOLENTA (aka VIOLENT CITY), directed by Sergio Sollima and co-starring Telly Savalas and Jill Ireland. The film is about a hit man who, after being double-crossed by his mistress and barely escaping a murder attempt, sets out to take revenge on the woman and the mob boss who put her up to it.
Ennio Morricone’s score is nervous, insistent, sometimes ironic. Far from using music as a simple environmental resource, the music constructs a sonic architecture that is closely aligned with the subjectivity of the protagonist, adopting his point of view, transforming the perception of the environment into an auditory texture. Thus, the music does not merely follow his emotional arc but amplifies it as a resource for introspection and narrative complexity. The result is a musical device that revolves around three structural cores: the city as a violent labyrinth, the killer’s split consciousness, and love as a betrayed promise.
The soundtrack album was released in both Italy and Japan in 1970 with different cover art. The same program was first reissued on CD in Japan in the early nineties. An expanded edition of the score was issued by GDM in 2006, later reissued with two additional bonus tracks in 2012 by the Intermezzo label. This is a reissue of that program produced by Claudio Fuiano and Dániel Winkler, remastered by Chris Malone. The booklet includes an essay by Miguel Angel Ordóñez, discussing the film and score.
