Remigio Ducros & Daniela Casa - the golden couple of the Library Music
I have been collecting Library Music for a few years now, every month spending my little salary in obscure records I don’t need (naaaa, joking, of course I do need them!). Complex music composed by underground musicians, whose lives were often a puzzle. What’s not to be obsessed with?! In many cases, these library music themes are linked to primordial memories, often associated with tv shows I used to watch when I was a kid - stuck in my mind because of some opening or ending titles I vaguely remember.
Over the years, I learned how to love two authors: Remigio Ducros and Daniela Casa. Both different but complementary, both sophisticated but in different ways.The reason why I match them in this is article is merely practical: they were a married couple and they often released albums collectively. Their artistic partnership was strong and intellectually stimulating, so much that the work of the duo can be analysed together. I decided to talk about this with Valentina Ducros, their daughter, on a Monday evening during the lockdown in June 2020, via Zoom. She is friendly and polite, opening up about her past, telling me great stories about the family as well as sharing some precious audio. What a bless! Valentina is a singer and dancer herself, singing on the Italian National TV in several shows, releasing her music and singing for the composer Franco Micalizzi and his band.
Daniela Casa is well renowned nowadays for her sophisticated productions in the intricate Italian Library Music world, she is the author of several masterpieces, spanning from Bossanova-like to chamber music, from rock and roll to pop and much more. But her musical career, though, started in the 70s when she was adapting famous English or American songs into Italian (such as Petula Clark for instance). During her school years, Mrs Casa was a pupil of Domenico Guaccero, a very famous Italian composer, and she studied guitar with the Maestro Claudio De Angelis. Mr Guaccero was notable for numerous compositions within the Associazione Nuova Consonanza group, a contemporary avant-garde music group established in the 60s and 70s in Rome, whose important members were Ennio Morricone, Egisto Macchi among others. During his life, he composed theatrical Operas, ballets, Chamber Music and Symphonic Music. Mrs Casa absorbed these influences, developing her unique taste and experimenting into the Library Music productions or, as it was called in Italy, “Sonorizzazioni”.
She was also a singer herself, producing and recording songs; I am particularly obsessed by her version of “Senza Fine” by Gino Paoli - IHMO better than the original. Her influences spanned from Roman, Milanese and Neapolitan folk songs to jazz, blues, disco and to Brazilian folk music, such as Samba and Bossa Nova. It was common in 60s Italy to hear Brazilian influences in the local music, as many Brazilian musicians moved to Rome in 1964, because of the military dictatorship of the South American country.
At the end of the 60s, Mrs Casa was the lead member of the first all-female beat band at the Piper Club in Rome, and later she founded a disco/blues band called Dani & Gepi, with her husband Remigio Ducros at the saxophone. During the 70s, the married couple produced songs for popular artists, Mina, Dalida, Gianni Morandi and others, they also played in the band Gli Idoli, the band of Lucio Dalla. As the partnership of the duo was well-oiled, at the end of the 70s, the couple decided to write, produce and release their music under the name Mariposa, mixing orchestration, bossa nova, soundtracking and much more: a very original take on music for children.
One of the fist Library production of the duo is dated 1971 and named ‘Lo Sport" together with the musician Gian Piero Ricci. The triple (sic) record is outstanding, with each musician scoring a set of sport. Casa is showing her talent in each of the compositions. Remigio Ducros as well is sonorizing several sports, I love “Canottaggio”, an alt-jazz composition with Morricone-like sounds and instruments.
Mr Ducros, a Genoese pianist living in Rome, released in 1970 “La Palla è Rotonda” and “Tempo di Naja”, with jazz and rhythm and blues influences. While Mrs Casa was interested in South American sounds, Mr Ducros was attracted by North American productions, such as jazz and funk. 1972 “La Fatica” shows an experimental and ambient side of the author. “I Sentieri del Mondo” is part of a series that explores the sound of the world music. and “T.S.T. ‘73 Cronaca” is more songwriting in style and mood. “America Amore Amaro” is an absolute banger of a funky record, you must own this in your collection. “America Giovane” has been recently re-pressed and is worth every single penny. “Misticismo” represents a step into the eastern philosophies by the author: spiritual music for mystic documentaries. If Marco Ferreri would have needed a score for a movie on the claustrophobic bureaucracy, he surely would have used the wonderful “Governo… Padroni...”. On an interview Valentina shared with me, Ducros tells the story of when he was playing on piano bars “I was playing with one hand only, as with the other you have to shake hands of the people or holding a glass, it was a bar after all” - showing a great sense of humor. there were many more Library records composed by Ducros, one of the latest is “Cuba Libre”, a central america inspired record, way before Buena Vista Social Club even existed. There is another composed together by the couple and it is called “Acqua Passata”: stunning chamber music with a hint of nostalgia.
While Ducros was producing more scores and “sonorizzazioni” for tv, Casa was focusing on contemporary classic music and music for Art Exhibitions. “Italia Minima” and “Vernissage” are beautifully difficult records. The astractism of Casa reached its peak with thise latest records: elegant chamber music.
I believe that the combination of their talents created something unique in the Library Music world, defining a style and highlighting the roman school, prominent in Italy. I am not the only one who believe this, look at this…
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