Luis Bacalov

Luis Enríquez Bacalov (born 30 August 1933 in Buenos Aires; † 15 November 2017 in Rome) was an Academy Award-winning Argentine pianist and composer, best known as a film composer.

Career

Bacalov's career began in Italy, where he was signed to RCA Records, as was Ennio Morricone. With Morricone he was connected since then a friendship. He composed for musicians such as Gianni Morandi, Dino or Rita Pavone. At the beginning of the 1960s he began to work as an arranger and composer for films, among others for Die Nackte with Horst Buchholz and Bette Davis. He was nominated for an Oscar in 1967 for Pasolini's The First Gospel of Matthew (alongside Elmer Bernstein, among others), but lost to Ken Thorne. During the 1960s and 1970s, Bacalov wrote the music for numerous Italo westerns, including Three Our Fathers for Four Scoundrels with Lee Van Cleef, in addition to Django with Franco Nero in the title role, and the theme song for the Bud Spencer western comedy The Fat Man in Mexico. He wrote the complete score for the film Kill Amigo with Klaus Kinski, but the producers preferred to use Morricone's better-known name for publicity reasons. During the 1980s, Bacalov worked mainly for television productions. In 1996, he made a comeback when he won the Academy Award for Best Score for The Postman, after Morricone had previously turned down the offer. In 2003, Quentin Tarantino used two Italo-Western titles by Bacalov for his two parts of Kill Bill, and in 2012 the theme song from Django for his homage to the Western genre, Django Unchained.

Bacalov also wrote classical pieces for choirs and orchestra, including the Misa Tango, which was premiered in Rome in 1999 with Plácido Domingo as tenor. As a pianist or orchestra leader, Bacalov also worked from 1962 onwards with Luigi Zito, Gato Barbieri (Desbandes, 1974) and with Giovanni Tommaso (Third Step/Goodbye 900, 1998, with Enrico Rava, Flavio Boltro, Paolo Fresu, Joe Lovano, Pietro Tonolo, Aldo Romano, among others). With Giovanni Tommaso, Daniel Bacalov (percussion) and Ulises Passarella (bandoneon) he recorded the album Tango and Around (CAM Jazz) in 2001.

Filmography (selection)