Francesco De Masi (11 January 1930 – 6 November 2005) was an Italian conductor and

film score composer A film score is original music written specifically to accompany a film. The score comprises a number of orchestral, instrumental, or choral pieces called cues, which are timed to begin and end at specific points during the film in order to e ...

Biography

He studied composition at the San Pietro a Maiella Conservatory in

Naples Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adminis ...

under the guidance of

Achille Longo Achille Longo (March 28, 1900 – May 28, 1954) was an Italian composer and music teacher. Biography Achille (junior), son of Alessandro and Luisa Todisco, was born in Naples on 28 March 1900. He was a pupil first of his father, and then of A. ...

, his uncle. De Masi became interested in

film music A film score is original music written specifically to accompany a film. The score comprises a number of orchestral, instrumental, or choral pieces called cues, which are timed to begin and end at specific points during the film in order to e ...

when Longo was asked to compose a soundtrack for a film, and he asked De Masi to be his assistant. De Masi's filmography includes scores for over 200 films and TV series, ranging from

Spaghetti Western The Spaghetti Western is a broad subgenre of Western films produced in Europe. It emerged in the mid-1960s in the wake of Sergio Leone's film-making style and international box-office success. The term was used by foreign critics because most o ...

s and

sword and sandal Sword-and-sandal, also known as peplum (pepla plural), is a subgenre of largely Italian-made historical, mythological, or Biblical epics mostly set in the Greco-Roman antiquity or the Middle Ages. These films attempted to emulate the big-budget H ...

epics to gialli and

horror film Horror is a film genre that seeks to elicit fear or disgust in its audience for entertainment purposes. Horror films often explore dark subject matter and may deal with transgressive topics or themes. Broad elements include monsters, apoca ...

s, such as

Lucio Fulci Lucio Fulci (; 17 June 1927 – 13 March 1996) was an Italian film director, screenwriter, and actor. Although he worked in a wide array of genres through a career spanning nearly five decades, including comedies and Spaghetti Westerns, he garn ...

's '' Lo squartatore di New York'' (''The New York Ripper''). De Masi also scored several action films, such as

Enzo G. Castellari Enzo Girolami Castellari (born 29 July 1938) is an Italian director, screenwriter and actor. Life and career Early life Castellari was born in Rome into a family of filmmakers. His father was a boxer turned film maker Marino Girolami. His uncle ...

's ''

Quel maledetto treno blindato ''The Inglorious Bastards'' ( it, Quel maledetto treno blindato, lit=That damned armored train) is a 1978 Italian Euro War, Euro War film directed by Enzo G. Castellari and starring Bo Svenson, Peter Hooten, Fred Williamson, Jackie Basehart, an ...

'' (''The Inglorious Bastards''), but he is best remembered for his work on Spaghetti Westerns. Unlike most other composers, De Masi started writing western scores slightly earlier than the genre's most influential musician,

Ennio Morricone Ennio Morricone (; 10 November 19286 July 2020) was an Italian composer, orchestrator, conductor, and trumpeter who wrote music in a wide range of styles. With more than 400 scores for cinema and television, as well as more than 100 classica ...

. As De Masi's music was less influenced by Morricone, his style had a distinctive sound. Many of his songs were performed by the low-voiced member of the I Cantori Moderni choir, Ettore "Raoul" Lovecchio. De Masi was also very interested in

classical music Classical music generally refers to the art music of the Western world, considered to be distinct from Western folk music or popular music traditions. It is sometimes distinguished as Western classical music, as the term "classical music" also ...

. He taught at the

Santa Cecilia Conservatory The Conservatorio di Musica Santa Cecilia is a state conservatory in Rome. History The institution has its roots dated back to the Congregazione de' musici di Roma named after Saint Cecilia in 1565 (now Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia). Sinc ...

, also conducting the conservatory's orchestra. In an interview, De Masi listed

Palestrina Palestrina (ancient ''Praeneste''; grc, Πραίνεστος, ''Prainestos'') is a modern Italian city and ''comune'' (municipality) with a population of about 22,000, in Lazio, about east of Rome. It is connected to the latter by the Via Pren ...

Karlheinz Stockhausen Karlheinz Stockhausen (; 22 August 1928 – 5 December 2007) was a German composer, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important but also controversial composers of the 20th and early 21st centuries. He is known for his groun ...

Ravel Joseph Maurice Ravel (7 March 1875 – 28 December 1937) was a French composer, pianist and conductor. He is often associated with Impressionism in music, Impressionism along with his elder contemporary Claude Debussy, although both composer ...

and

Shostakovich Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich, , group=n (9 August 1975) was a Soviet-era Russian composer and pianist who became internationally known after the premiere of his First Symphony in 1926 and was regarded throughout his life as a major compo ...

as his main classical influences. De Masi died of cancer at the age of 75.

Selected filmography

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:De Masi, Francesco 1930 births 2005 deaths Italian film score composers Italian male film score composers Spaghetti Western composers Deaths from cancer in Lazio Italian male conductors (music) 20th-century Italian conductors (music) 20th-century Italian male musicians