Italian Library Music in the 1970s: Soundtracks for Films Never Made

A catalog without a film

In 1970s Italy, a composer could write a soundtrack before any film existed to attach it to. That was not a paradox: it was simply how library music worked, records produced for a catalog and licensed out to radio, television and genre cinema. Track titles such as Industriale, Angoscia, Quarta pagina or Ittiologia do not tell a story: they describe a mood, a possible edit, a use. The buyer of these records was a film editor or a broadcaster, not a listener browsing a record shop. At the center of this factory of sound without images stand two names, Piero Umiliani and Alessandro Alessandroni, and a recording studio in Rome that has since become legendary among collectors.

Umiliani and the Sound Work Shop

The roots of the phenomenon actually predate the decade. Umiliani came from jazz: after winning the critics’ award for best Italian jazz record with “Piccola Suite Americana,” he founded the label Omicron, through which he produced the first records in a long series of sonorizzazioni conceived for audiovisual use. It was in the 1970s, though, that the work became systematic: in 1968 he opened his own studio, the Sound Work Shop, where he conceived most of his projects, from film scores to pop records to library music proper, often released under pseudonyms such as M. Zalla, Rovi or Moggi. Under the name M. Zalla, in 1974, came “Musica classica per l’uomo d’oggi” and “Mondo inquieto,” two records now collected in the Cinedelic box set “Library Music Volume 1,” which gathers thirteen albums released between 1971 and 1983 on Umiliani’s own imprints, Sound Work Shop and Liuto. In 1972 Umiliani also released “Il mondo dei romani,” one of his most atypical records, recorded during a period of intense electronic experimentation.

Alessandroni, the whistle and the fake names

Alessandro Alessandroni came to library music from a different path: he is the whistling voice heard in Ennio Morricone’s westerns and the founder of the choir I Cantori Moderni. For the label Sermi he recorded albums such as “Industriale,” today among the most sought-after entries in the Italian library catalog. With Umiliani he also shared a less visible project: The Braen’s Machine, launched in 1971 and originally credited to the aliases Braen and Gisteri, behind which stood Alessandroni himself and his colleague Oronzo De Filippi, with Umiliani producing. The first record, “Underground,” was recorded in January 1971 at the Sound Work Shop; it was followed in 1973 by “Temi ritmici e dinamici.” Anonymity was not a stylistic choice: it allowed output to multiply without flooding the market under a single name.

The industry behind the catalog

Behind Umiliani and Alessandroni worked a system of specialized labels. CAM (Creazioni Artistiche Musicali), founded in Rome in 1959, was home to composers such as Nino Rota, Piero Piccioni and Carlo Rustichelli alongside Morricone himself, and it also recycled material originally written for real film scores into library releases. Cinevox, founded in 1960 by Cesare Andrea Bixio, focused on releases tied to cinema. Sermi worked with a small group of composers, including Alessandroni, I Marc 4, Sandro Brugnolini, Rino De Filippi and Giovanni Tommaso. Each label produced numbered catalogs meant to be browsed by whoever needed to score a program, not to be listened through in sequence by an audience.

From a forgotten catalog to a global mine

For decades these records stayed outside the ordinary record market: small pressings, distribution limited to people working in radio or television. Today the story has flipped. Reissue labels such as Sonor Music Editions curate the Sermi catalog, while Cinedelic, Schema Records and Black Sweat Records systematically reissue Umiliani’s work, up to box sets like “The Complete Sound Work Shop Heritage.” What was born as anonymous background music for a state television program has become a catalog chased by collectors, DJs and producers around the world: the film these records never actually scored is, in a sense, still being written today, somewhere else.

Listening notes

• The Braen’s Machine, “Underground” (1971): the record that opens the double-alias project of Alessandroni and Oronzo De Filippi, produced by Umiliani at the Sound Work Shop.
• Piero Umiliani (as M. Zalla), “Mondo inquieto” (1974): electronic library music released under the pseudonym Umiliani reserved for certain catalog projects.
• Piero Umiliani, “Il mondo dei romani” (1972): one of the maestro’s most experimental records, between library music and electronic synthesis.
• Alessandro Alessandroni, “Industriale”: one of the most representative releases of the Sermi catalog.
• “Selected Works, Sermi Records” (playlist curated by Sonor Music Editions): a gateway into the label’s catalog, featuring Alessandroni, I Marc 4 and Sandro Brugnolini.