Broxton Comment-MB-006-68

LA MONACA DI MONZA [THE LADY OF MONZA] (1968)

La Monaca di Monza is an Italian drama film from director Eriprando Visconti, based on the famous 1840 novel ‘I Promessi Sposi’ by Alessandro Manzoni. It is loosely based on the real life events of Marianna de Leyva, better known as “The Nun of Monza,” who was a main player in lurid scandal in 16th century Italy when she gave birth to two children fathered by a local aristocrat, and arranged for the murder of another nun in order to cover up the affair. The film stars Anne Heywood as Leyva, Hardy Krüger as the head of her convent Father Arrigone, and Antonio Sabàto as the lascivious aristocrat Giampaolo.

Morricone’s score for the film is built around one of his most haunting main themes, “La Monaca di Monza,” which builds out of some eerie scene-setting in the opening ‘Titoli’ to become a deep, lush, but slightly twisted-sounding viola melody underpinned with nervous piano chords, strings, and a harpsichord. It’s a theme which wants to be rapturously romantic, but never quite gets there, held back by Leyva’s scheming nature. The same melody is arranged as a piece of liturgical choral music for a cut-glass female vocalist ion “Gloria in Excelsis Deo” is then expanded further in the second and third “La Monaca di Monza” cues, which have a more tragic sound to them, again featuring weeping violas and cellos.

Other cues of note include the swooning, but oddly unsettling “Svegliarsi Pensando,” which uses the same instrumental textures as the main theme but carries a different melody, and the more conventionally attractive “Falsa Tranquillitá,” which initially uses a prominent harp to convey a slightly more warm and appealing tone, and then becomes quite expansive during its lush and sweeping finale.

“Quel Giorno” is quite forceful, with a touch of Baroque-flavored action music to represent Leyva’s pursuers from the Spanish Inquisition, while the two “Dopo la Notte” cues feature a variation on the main melody that acts as a lovely pastoral theme for the couple’s ill-fated and ill-conceived child. Finally, in the conclusive “Titoli di Coda,” lets all his melodies sing at their most tender, allowing them to convey the brief romance but ultimate tragedy of the nun of Monza’s life.

The version of La Monaca di Monza reviewed here is the one released by Quartet Records in 2014, paired with another beautiful Morricone romance score La Califfa. The program expands by seven minutes the previous release by Point Records, which was issued in the early nineties and now hard-to-find, and is absolutely recommended to fans of Morricone’s liturgical style.

Track Listing: 1. La Monaca di Monza (Titoli) (2:35), 2. La Monaca di Monza (Gloria in Excelsis Deo) (0:58), 3. Svegliarsi Pensando (0:56), 4. Falsa Tranquillitá (3:04), 5. Notte Non Notte (1:27), 6. Quel Giorno (2:00), 7. Dopo la Notte (1:34), 8. La Monaca di Monza # 2 (0:43), 9. La Monaca di Monza # 3 (2:13), 10. Dopo la Notte # 2 (1:10), 11. Svegliarsi Pensando # 2 (1:42), 12. Canone Per Quattro (0:57), 13. Titoli di Coda (2:27). Quartet Records QR-156, 21 minutes 46 seconds.

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