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Alhambra Records proudly presents on this CD the world premiere release of two scores by Angelo Francesco Lavagnino: CALYPSO (directed by Franco Rossi) from 1958 is a love story set in the Caribbean islands and ITALIA ´61 IN CIRCARAMA (directed by Elio Piccon) is a short travelogue documentary from 1961.

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n 1961 Turin celebrated the centenary of the Italian unity with a large exposition which lasted from May till October of that year. One of the most popular exhibits was the 28 minute documentary ITALIA ´61 IN CIRCARAMA which was produced by the Walt Disney company and sponsored by the Italian automobile manfucturer Fiat. The spectacular views of this Cinerama tour of Italy (filmed with nine cameras) impressed more than two million visitors during the entire duration of that Turin Expo. As the original music tapes of Lavagnino´s score for ITALIA ´61 don´t exist anymore, we had to take the music from the only existing source: A top-rare 10” LP released in Italy in early 1962 which contained about 20 minutes of the music which were edited together (probably by Lavagnino himself) into three movements with the programmatic title “Rapsodia Italiana”. Indeed this lavish and splendid work by Lavagnino which has been written for a large orchestra must be called a true and fascinating symphonic poem which can stand on its own as pure music even without the visuals. and which will immediately remind many listeners of his previous work for LA GRANDE OLIMPIADE (also available on Alhambra records).

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