Western Spaghetti

The Bande-Son Symphony Orchestra’s 2023 program was a rare tribute to the Italian western, built around meticulous musical reconstructions. Many works had not been heard since their original recordings and most scores had vanished; thanks to Thierry Besançon’s painstaking work, they were revived as faithfully as possible.

The genre’s story begins in 1964 with A Fistful of Dollars and spans roughly a decade: over 600 films, including 79 in 1968. By 1970, self-parody swept in, and critics derisively coined “spaghetti western.” Yet the western all’italiana reinvented the form—“parricidal,” some said: Django killed Gary Cooper. Sergio Leone didn’t invent the European western, but he ignited a revolution in narrative, aesthetics, and morality. Italian westerns embraced fantasy, invention, and primal motives—love, hate, revenge. For this exceptional season, more than 120 musicians carried audiences back under the blazing western sun.