I just saw this crazed thing and couldn't believe how great the score was, especially since-- I confess-- I'd never heard anything else by this composer before. To my ear, it's up there with the music for FIVE DOLLS FOR AN AUGUST MOON by Piero Umiliani. Yes, I like it that much.

So is there any recording of any of the score, even the main theme? It's truly all over the place, with baritone-crooned ballads mixed with tripped-out nightmare music, so even a track or two would be a treat.

I'm already prepared for disappointment, but I thought if there was any answer to be had to this question, this is the place to find it.

I wish! This has always been a favourite of mine, and I wish I knew all the lyrics to that end-title theme song so I could belt them out along with Raoul. There was a crappy-quality bootleg CD (free gift with an Italian genre magazine) called Murder for Pleasure which collected a number of classic giallo tracks together (including a couple of Reverberi's pieces from DELIRIO CALDO), but they were just culled from VHS audio tracks and so all the distortion present in the cruddy optical track for DELIRIUM was present and correct on the disc as well.

If anyone knows of a legit release, I'd be all over it. Polselli even wanted to release the song as a single, but as far as I know nothing came of it. Some tight-fisted Italian licensor is probably demanding a ludicrous sum to release the master tapes - that seems to be the usual reason why such things never see the light of day...

Ever hear the song "Crazy" by Gnarls Barkley? It samples pretty heavily from Reverberi's score for Nel Cimitero Di Tucson (1968):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-shZs2I4E4

I'm waiting for this to show up in a Michael Mann movie.

Here's the original (it starts at about 2:20 in this video):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nz7zGZdBxvc

Thanks for the reply and the info, Steve, and I'm glad to know somebody else thinks this music is as groovy as I do. In fact, I may as well admit, I've been listening to the (Italian) soundtrack of the film with the TV off, just to hear the score! And since the movie is almost wall-to-wall music anyway, it plays like one of those old records that had the soundtrack with dialogue. (And yes, all the screaming and heavy breathing makes it even better.)

And thanks, too, Doran-- I only found out about the Gnarls Barkley connection when I did what little online research I could on the composer, probably at the same time you were typing your reply. On top of everything else, what a great name for a Giallo composer-- Reverberi!

For anyone else not familiar with DELIRIUM, don't think the movie itself isn't worthy-- it's completely insane, and engrossing from the first second. Mickey Hargitay is, for once, perfect (he comes across as a combination of Gordon Mitchell and Lurch) and all the women are early-'70s fantastic-looking.

And we haven't even touched on Gianfranco's equally talented brother Gian Piero Reverberi! On occasion, they've even been known to Reverber-ate together, and some say they collaborated on Preparati la Bara.

Gian Piero (aka Gianpiero, Giampiero) has written a few film scores, most appositely for our purposes, the equally striking music for the western Colt in Pugno al Diavolo (literally, Colt in the Fist of the Devil, but at least one other Spaghetti has been dubbed this in English, so be warned), which features a thoroughly deconstructed Duane Eddy twang, with that sound pitch-shifted and scuffed up into a grungey, menacing but catchy rockabilly dirge that's unlike anything else I've ever heard outside of a record by avant-weirdsters The Residents!

(Warning: Potential Reverberi Brother Confusion Ensues.)

That's the punk rocker experimentalist side of Gian Piero, which Gianfranco also shared (virtually impossible to tell the two brothers apart musically at times!), indulged to good effect on the mid-sixties recordings produced, arranged, orchestra-conducted, often cowrote, and played on for Lucio Dalla, nowadays a beloved, classy pop entertainer, back then art rocker and vocal banshee. Gianfranco Reverberi provided about the most convincing evocation of Anglo-American 'rock and soul' I'm aware of on an Italian record, lots that sounds like Burdon and Animals, Spencer Davis, Nice, Detroit White Soul, London psychedelia, but also a lot of what Gian Piero Reverberi's best remembered for in his own contributions to the artist: incredibly tasty, understated but ecstatic string arrangements, and peerless orchestration generally.

In my view, Gian Piero's the best ornamenter of great singer-songwriters' compositions Italian pop and rock produced, a modern Nelson Riddle attuned to jazz mood modulation but also a master of Italian baroque, beat combo, folk rock, Prog (he was a member of key band Le Orme for years) . He long had the pick of the very best poet-musicians to collaborate with, invaluable assistant to Luigi Tenco, Gino Paoli, Lucio Battisti. The chamber pop and wee small hours club sounds of their records are irresistable in themselves, and he provided the sound (and many have studied and learned that sound in turn, the Bowie-Mick Ronson arranging team among them ).