I’m currently enjoying a rewatch of the cringe-iest of TV shows and its theme song is one of the all-time greats. It’s a tune called “Frolic” by Italian film composer Luciano Michelini.
Why is this so magically effective?
Let’s start by comparing the Curb theme to the Seinfeld theme. The two could not sound more different. Jonathan Wolff’s Seinfeld theme is purely electronic, all synth patches and samples played on a Korg M1. It gestures toward Black and Latin music, especially funk. (Fun fact: Wolff recorded slightly different theme music for every episode!)
If Seinfeld is a late 1980s version of hipness and freshness, the Curb theme is deliberately unhip. Its basic form is a march, a style that was popular one hundred years ago. The instrumentation evokes old-world Europe: mandolin, hammer dulcimer, tuba, piccolo. The harmony is gentle chromatic variations on plain old functional Western tonality. Luciano Michelini originally wrote the tune for a 1974 film, “La Bellissima Estate“. Here it is in its original context:
The tune was compiled into a music library, and was licensed for a bank commercial. Larry David explained on the Origins podcast how he heard it and loved it, and the rest is history. From this Variety article:
When, in 2000, David launched “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” he remembered “Frolic,” and series editor Steve Rasch found it at what was then known as Killer Tracks, a production music library which is now Universal Production Music.
“‘Frolic’ was in a catalog we called the RCA-L library, which was basically Italian film music from BMG,” says Carl Peel, who is now vice president of repertoire and music production at the company. “We were owned by BMG at the time and we rep’d this catalog of old Italian film music from the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s. ‘Frolic’ was on one of those discs.”
Let’s dig into “Frolic” a little deeper, it’s fun.
The tune starts in C major. In the first two measures, the melody skates chromatically back and forth between the seventh (B) and sixth (A) on top of a C chord. These are unstable notes, chord extensions rather than main chord tones. They aren’t far out or weird necessarily, but they are unusual, and the chromaticism adds to the feeling of gentle antic hijinks.
Next, the melody walks chromatically up from G-sharp up to B. When it lands there, however, the underlying harmony shifts down from C to B7. This is unexpected! It’s not the strangest chromatic root movement imaginable, but usually a B in the bass would imply G7, not B7. The melody skates chromatically from B to the flat seventh A and back up. Then, in measure four, comes the most iconic moment in the tune: the high B in the piccolo answered by the thumping low B in the tuba. This is the moment when the picture cuts abruptly from the title to the first shot of the episode.
The entire melody repeats transposed down a whole step on Bbmaj7 and A7. It ends differently this time, on an A major arpeggio in measure eight. This is a rhythmically interesting moment because there has been a swinging march feel so far, but suddenly the eighth notes straighten out. (March rhythms were an important predecessor of swing.)
In measure nine, the melody repeats again, transposed down another whole step to Abmaj7 and G7. Now the descending chromatic bassline makes retrospective sense. The Cmaj7, Bbmaj7 and Abmaj7 form an Andalusian cadence. The B7 is a substitute dominant for Bbmaj7, and the A7 is a substitute dominant for Abmaj7. Finally, G7 is a regular dominant wrapping us back around to Cmaj7.
In measure thirteen, there’s a cheerful Cmaj7 to G7 figure, taking us back to the top of the form. The entire thing repeats, and then goes to the B section, more or less identical to the A section but transposed up a fourth.
The musical world of the show is a completely European light-classical one. One of the more recognizable recurring themes is “Three Little Maids From School Are We” from The Mikado. I also love “Amusement” by Franco Micalizzi. But for the sound of rich people being socially inept, nothing can compare to “Frolic.”