On then to to the soundtrack to book 2, “Vengeance in Venice”.

The playlist opens in suitably Venetian style with the overture to Vivaldi’s “Juditha Triumphans” which – as I hope you know by now – is important to the plot. In comparison with “Venetian Game”, there are fewer songs that actually appear in the book, but a number of them were ones that were always kind of hanging around in the back of my mind whilst I was writing. Typically, songs relating to mirrors or glass.

The book has been out for a year, so I hope I’m not revealing any spoilers when I say that the title of Considine’s installation “Seven by Seven by Seven” was – of course – inspired by the Hawkwind track “Seven by Seven”. Similarly, I’m sure many of you guessed where the name of Dario’s baby daughter came from!

“Angels of Death” is by no means my favourite Hawkwind track, but the compilation album of the same name does play an integral part, and so I’ve included it here.

There are two pieces which are important to the story which, unfortunately, do not appear to be on Spotify. The first is David Lee’s soundtrack to the Vincent Price film “The Masque of the Red Death”. Here’s a Youtube clip of the opening/closing credits :-

The Masque of the Red Death

The second is Michael J Lewis’ soundtrack to another Vincent Price film, “Theatre of Blood”. Here, again, are the opening credits.

Theatre of Blood

Both films show Price at the height of his considerable powers, and both – in their music and imagery – had a big influence on “Vengeance”.

One thing that I found a little strange in retrospect is that there is no big number with which to close the story – I honestly didn’t have one in mind. And so this playlist ends in gentler fashion with the Dancing Frenchmen dancing away to Louis Armstrong’s “All of Me” and Chet Baker’s “Let’s Get Lost” (a number which has some sentimental value, as it was our first dance at our wedding. I could, I think, still have a go at a social foxtrot to it).

Buon ascolto!

Vengeance in Venice – Soundtrack