Moby Dick

Moby-Dick or The Whale, known in Italy as The white whale Moby Dick, is a story written by  American Herman Melville, published in America in 1851.   In March and April 1973, RAI broadcasted the story as a television drama entitled: "The  representation of the terrible hunting the white whale Moby Dick." This television history was  divided into 5 episodes and it was directed by Carlo Quartucci, screenplay by Roberto Lerici,  Franco Parenti and Rino Sodano.   Maestro Fiorenzo Carpi De Resmini, one of the greatest composers of the 900, was chosen to  compose the soundtrack of the drama. Giorgio Strehler, great director and theater director, told  about him: "... My theater is held together by the notes of Fiorenzo Carpi. Very often,  since the  beginning or during the work, his music has given the "internal clarification" that I needed, the  lighting of a "whole" that I could not grasp…”  Within television and film, Maestro composer Carpi De Resmini is from time to time involved in  different situations, but always extremely challenging. His musical creation should eventually help  to strengthen and highlight the images and situations that the movie describes, without  overpowering, but musically amalgamating them. It 's rare that a song can enjoy a life of its own when it meets the above criteria, but this is not the  case with the soundtrack composed by Maestro Fiorenzo Carpi for RAI’s  "Moby Dick", because  every song lives of its own personality and emphasizes faithfully every character and all situations  that are part of the story.  In the "Ballad of Sailor", sung by young and talented Gigi Proietti, we find a perfect description of  the violent, dirty and desperate life of the sailors aboard whaling ships. The instrumentation is the  essential one, composed of all those little tools that the same crew could have carried aboard  to  make the journey less burdensome, as the harmonica, fiddle, banjo, flute, etc. .. These tools are a  counterpoint to a men's chorus (the crew) that proposes always the same question (Sailor, what do  you carry in your gray bag?), which is reinforced by a piano accompaniment and a solo sailor who  responds. The pace is lively and paced like a dance where, willingly or unwillingly, the participants  are forced to dance tirelessly on the deck of the ship plowing through the waves.  As a completely different character is the "Song of the captain", sung by the incomparable Gigi  Proietti again, who describes a Captain Akab who is feared by his crew (male chorus that ends the  song) that, at the same time, admires and respects him. This arrangement, which as usual uses the piano, the accordion and other instruments cited above, is much more refined with the entrance of  the spinet. It is historically proven that this keyboard instrument with plucked strings could be  present on sailing because of its modest size. Of a completely different setup and instrumentation are the songs composed for "Background port"  and "Factory", where experimentation and overlapping sound effects are always extremely  interesting and very timely. In the song "Moby Dick" we can hear the musical description of the  white and majestic whale  that plows the waves of the sea and stubbornly challenges captain Akab  to the death. We can say without fear of contradiction that the music created for this collection is  more than a soundtrack, it is a lively, vibrant, fascinating account of the book from which the drama  drew the deeds and it made it almost a musical.