In 1997, a symphonic power metal band from Trieste, Italy, released an album called Legendary Tales. The band was Rhapsody (later Rhapsody of Fire). The album was the first full realization of what guitarist Luca Turilli and keyboardist Alex Staropoli called “Hollywood Metal” — subsequently known as “Film Score Metal” — a specific approach to heavy metal that treated the orchestra and choir arrangements not as decorative additions to the rock band but as primary compositional voices equal to the guitar, bass, and drums. The genre they invented draws from John Williams’s cinematic orchestral language, from the Italian progressive rock tradition, from the classical neoclassical metal of Yngwie Malmsteen, and from the fantasy narrative tradition of J.R.R. Tolkien and their own elaborate mythology (the “Emerald Sword Saga” — a multi-album fantasy narrative with dragons, elves, wizards, and battles that spans nine albums). Turilli has DiMarzio Tone Zone in the bridge of his Capelli Guitars custom — “around 8:35 Luca points the bridge pickup of his custom made guitar and tells us he’s using DiMarzio Tone Zone.” He has the DiMarzio Air Norton in the neck: “8:37 is the time of the video when Luca points at the neck pickup of his custom made white guitar and says is an Air Norton by DiMarzio.” These are not the most technically demanding pickup choices in this guide. They are appropriate choices for a guitarist whose primary contribution is not tonal innovation but compositional architecture — the specific use of the guitar as one voice within a cinematic orchestral production. The Tone Zone and the Air Norton serve that purpose exactly as required. He composed all the music for Rhapsody/Rhapsody of Fire with Alex Staropoli. He is one of the inventors of a genre. He is from Trieste.
Luca Turilli was born on March 5, 1972, in Trieste, Venezia Giulia, Italy. Due to his father’s influence, he developed an interest in classical music and learned piano and guitar. In 1993 — when he was sixteen years old — he survived cancer. In the same year, he co-founded the band Thundercross with keyboardist Alex Staropoli, which was subsequently renamed Rhapsody and then Rhapsody of Fire. Between 1997 and 2011, Turilli composed all the music for the band alongside Staropoli and wrote all the lyrics. He plays guitars on all Rhapsody/Rhapsody of Fire albums and plays keyboards with Luca Turilli’s Dreamquest. In 2008, he launched “Luca Turilli’s Neoclassical Revelation,” an online guitar course named for his neoclassical playing style. In 2011, Rhapsody of Fire announced a “friendly split”: Staropoli and vocalist Fabio Lione continued as Rhapsody of Fire, while Turilli formed Luca Turilli’s Rhapsody (later renamed and subsequently retired). In 2018, Turilli rejoined the original lineup for a 20th Anniversary Farewell Tour. He produces his music using Cubase 10.5. He has a Capelli Guitars custom in three colors. He survived cancer at sixteen. He invented a genre.
Background: Trieste Italy, Piano and Classical Music, Cancer at 16, Thundercross to Rhapsody, Hollywood Metal
The specific cultural background of Rhapsody of Fire — Italian musicians creating symphonic power metal in Trieste, a city at the northeastern corner of Italy where Italian, Slavic, and Central European cultural traditions meet — is an unusual origin for one of the defining bands in European power metal. Italy’s specific contribution to heavy metal has been distinct from the Scandinavian tradition documented elsewhere in this section: the Italian tradition draws more explicitly from the country’s operatic heritage, from the orchestral complexity of Italian film scores (Ennio Morricone being the most internationally celebrated Italian film composer), and from the specific Italian progressive rock tradition of the 1970s (PFM, Banco del Mutuo Soccorso, Le Orme) rather than from the Scandinavian folk and black metal traditions.
Turilli’s father’s influence in classical music — and his early piano study — is the specific origin of the neoclassical dimension of his guitar playing: he absorbed classical music as a child, and when he encountered heavy metal, he brought that classical foundation to the new instrument. The combination produced the specific “neoclassical revelation” that he named his online course after: the systematic application of classical compositional principles — scales, arpeggios, modal harmony, counterpoint — to electric guitar within a metal context. This is the same neoclassical tradition that Yngwie Malmsteen established and that Alexi Laiho (Series 2 #176), Timo Tolkki (Series 2 #177), and others extended — but applied within the specific Italian orchestral context that gives Rhapsody’s music its distinct character.
His cancer survival at age sixteen — in 1993, the year he co-founded Thundercross — is a biographical fact that contextualizes the subsequent twenty-eight years of musical activity differently than they might otherwise be understood. A musician who survived cancer at sixteen and then co-founded the band that invented a genre is a musician who had very specific reasons to create the music he created. The epic, heroic, life-affirming character of Rhapsody’s music — the dragons, the battles, the triumph of good over evil, the specifically heroic narrative structure of the Emerald Sword Saga — reflects, at some level, the specific perspective of someone who has survived a threat to his own life and chosen to make art about heroism and triumph.
The “Hollywood Metal” concept — which they subsequently called “Film Score Metal” — is the most specific aesthetic manifesto in European power metal. John Williams’s approach to cinematic orchestration (the specific way Williams uses the orchestra to create emotional climaxes within narrative contexts) is the primary production reference, combined with the Italian operatic tradition’s sense of dramatic vocal expression and the heavy metal tradition’s physical energy. Rhapsody’s music is the specific place where these three traditions meet: Hollywood soundtracks, Italian opera, European power metal. No other band sounds like this.
The Rig: Luca Turilli’s Guitars, Amps, and Effects
Guitars
Capelli Guitars Luca Turilli Custom Model (Primary Career Guitar, Three Colors — Blue, Red, White): Luca Turilli’s primary guitar for the peak of his career with Rhapsody of Fire and subsequently is the Capelli Guitars Luca Turilli Custom Model — a custom instrument produced by Italian luthier Cristoph Capelli in three colorways: blue, red, and white. The Equipboard documentation captures the specific story from the “Visions from the Enchanted Lands” DVD: “At 6:54 Luca explains Cristoph Capelli made him a blue version of his custom guitar, along with two other colors, a red one, and a white one.” The guitar’s pickup configuration: DiMarzio Tone Zone (bridge) and DiMarzio Air Norton (neck) — both confirmed directly from the same DVD source where “Luca points the bridge pickup of his custom made guitar and tells us he’s using DiMarzio Tone Zone” and “Luca points at the neck pickup of his custom made white guitar and says is an Air Norton by DiMarzio.”
The DiMarzio Tone Zone bridge pickup — a humbucker known for its full, warm character with pronounced bass and lower midrange content — provides a smooth, vocal-like quality to sustained lead notes that suits Turilli’s melodic lead approach. The DiMarzio Air Norton neck pickup — a lower-output humbucker with the smooth, open character of vintage AlNiCo-5 construction — provides a warm, singing neck tone for the clean and melodic passages in Rhapsody’s orchestral arrangements. Both pickups are passive, and their moderate output levels reflect a guitar designed for melodic expression rather than maximum saturation and aggression.
The Capelli Guitars custom’s floating tremolo system — documented in the Equipboard description as a “versatile tremolo system” that “players can explore a wide array of pitch effects, all while maintaining tuning stability” — is appropriate for a guitarist whose lead vocabulary includes whammy bar vibrato and subtle pitch modulation within the melodic passages of Rhapsody’s orchestral arrangements.
Ibanez S Series (Early Career, “Visions from the Enchanted Lands” DVD Context): The Equipboard documentation confirms: “In Rhapsody of Fire DVD ‘Visions from the Enchanted Lands,’ Luca himself explains he used Ibanez S Series before he got his current custom guitars made.” The Ibanez S Series — the thin, lightweight “Saber” body design with ZR or Edge tremolo system — was his primary instrument before the Capelli relationship was established. The S Series’s thin, lightweight body and dual humbucker configuration provided the standard high-performance Italian neoclassical metal guitar approach.
Amps
Mesa Boogie (Historical Primary, Visions Era): The Kamelot Wiki documentation confirms Mesa Boogie amplifiers as part of Turilli’s historical amplifier arsenal — consistent with the broader European power metal adoption of the Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier and Triple Rectifier that also characterizes the rigs of Emppu Vuorinen (Series 2 #178) and Timo Tolkki (Series 2 #177). The Mesa’s American high-gain character provided the tight, articulate lead tone for the neoclassical single-note runs and sweep-picked arpeggios that define Turilli’s lead playing within the dense orchestral production of Rhapsody’s albums.
Line 6 HD147 (Triumph or Agony Recording): “Line 6 HD147 amplifiers (used for the recording of Triumph or Agony)” — the Kamelot Wiki documents this specific amp-to-album citation. The Line 6 HD147 is a 300-watt digital modeling amplifier (the “H” indicating “head”) that was Line 6’s professional-level digital modeling amp of the 2000s. Its use for the Triumph or Agony (2006) recording documents a period when Turilli explored digital amplifier modeling for studio purposes — the same approach that subsequently became standard through Fractal and Neural DSP. The HD147’s 147-watt-per-channel power and digital amp model variety made it a capable studio tool for the specific high-gain character appropriate for symphonic power metal recording.
ENGL Powerball II (2011 Tour — Final Rhapsody of Fire Live Appearances): “During his last tour in 2011 he has been seen playing through an ENGL Powerball II.” The ENGL Powerball II — the updated version of the Powerball that also appears in the rigs of Timo Tolkki (Series 2 #177) and other European power metal guitarists — provided the tight, modern, German high-gain character for Turilli’s final Rhapsody of Fire tour appearances before the band’s 2011 split. The ENGL Powerball II’s four channels and specific German-engineered tight response suited the precise, note-defined lead playing of his neoclassical approach.
Marshall Cabinets (Speaker Cabinets with Mesa/ENGL Heads): The Kamelot Wiki documentation confirms Marshall cabinets alongside his amp heads — the standard professional touring configuration of European metal guitarists who combine non-Marshall amplifier heads with Marshall 4×12 speaker cabinets. The Marshall 1960 series 4×12 cabinets (loaded with Celestion Vintage 30s or G12T-75s) provide the specific speaker character that complements the Mesa and ENGL head tones.
Cubase 10.5 (Production Software, Confirmed Instagram): “On Luca’s official Instagram account he is showing us his Cubase 10.5.” Cubase — the Steinberg digital audio workstation — is documented as his production software, reflecting the producer dimension of his career alongside the guitarist identity. The use of Cubase connects him to the studio production approach that characterizes the most production-oriented musicians in this guide: he is not just a guitarist but the primary architect of Rhapsody’s specific studio sound.
Playing Style & Tone Philosophy
Luca Turilli’s playing style is the most orchestrally integrated in the European power metal tradition — a guitarist who thinks about guitar parts as components within a full symphonic arrangement rather than as the primary musical voice of a guitar-centered band. His lead guitar work — the neoclassical arpeggios, the harmonic minor runs, the specific sweep-picked passages that Guitar Master Class describes as “lots of pedal tones, sweep picked arpeggios and alternate picking runs” — always exists within the context of a production that includes full orchestra, choir, multiple keyboard parts, and the specific cinematic-scale arrangements that Rhapsody’s “Hollywood Metal” concept requires.
His tone philosophy reflects this orchestral integration: the DiMarzio Tone Zone and Air Norton in the Capelli custom provide a warm, melodic, vocal-like lead tone that blends with the orchestral production rather than cutting through it aggressively. Where a guitarist in a simpler band context might need a more aggressive pickup character (higher output, more treble bite) to be heard above the rhythm section, Turilli’s guitar operates in the orchestral context of Rhapsody’s arrangements, where the guitar’s warmth complements the strings and choir rather than competing with them. The SevenString.org forum’s advice for replicating his tone: “Too much gain, too much reverb, not very much bass” — reflecting the specific character of his production approach (controlled gain rather than maximum saturation, some reverb for the orchestral blend, not bass-heavy in the guitar channel).
His neoclassical vocabulary — the harmonic minor scale, Phrygian dominant, diminished arpeggios — is the same tradition as Malmsteen, Tolkki, and Laiho, but deployed within the specifically Italian classical-orchestral production context that gives Rhapsody its distinct character. The same harmonic language sounds entirely different in Malmsteen’s clinical neoclassical metal context, in Tolkki’s Finnish power metal context, and in Turilli’s Italian Hollywood-orchestral context — the context of production and arrangement shapes what the notes mean as much as the notes themselves.
How to Sound Like Luca Turilli
Guitar: Capelli Guitars custom (Italian luthier, available by commission) with DiMarzio Tone Zone (bridge) and Air Norton (neck) — the authentic pickup combination for his warm, orchestrally integrated lead tone. Any quality double-humbucker guitar with floating tremolo (Ibanez S Series is the documented historical approach) provides an accessible starting point.
Amp: ENGL Powerball II for the late-career approach (tight, German-voiced high-gain). Mesa Boogie for the earlier character. Line 6 Helix or comparable digital modeling for studio flexibility. Marshall 4×12 cabinet for speaker character.
Amp Settings (ENGL Powerball II — Lead Channel):
| Control | Setting (0–10) | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Gain | 6–8 | Moderate-high — not maximum; melodic leads need clarity, not saturation |
| Bass | 4–5 | Moderate — “not very much bass” per SevenString forum advice |
| Mid | 5–6 | Present — melodic neoclassical leads need midrange warmth |
| Treble | 6 | Bright but warm — the Tone Zone’s inherent warmth needs treble support |
| Presence | 5 | Moderate — clarity without harshness in the orchestral context |
Scale vocabulary: Harmonic minor scale, Phrygian dominant (mode 5 of harmonic minor), diminished arpeggios for the neoclassical passages. Pedal tone technique: sustaining a single note while running ascending or descending scale patterns around it. Sweep-picked arpeggios across wide string ranges. Always in the context of an orchestral arrangement — the guitar part should complement and support the orchestra, not fight for space against it.
Influence & Legacy
Luca Turilli’s influence on symphonic and neoclassical power metal is foundational — as the co-creator of “Hollywood Metal” (Film Score Metal), he established the specific approach to orchestral integration within power metal that subsequent bands including Nightwish, Epica, Kamelot, and dozens of other symphonic metal bands built from. The specific combination of full symphony orchestra, choir, neoclassical guitar vocabulary, and fantasy narrative that Rhapsody brought to power metal was genuinely new in 1997, and its influence is still audible in every contemporary symphonic metal band that uses orchestral arrangements as primary compositional voices rather than as decorative additions.
His connection to Emppu Vuorinen (Series 2 #178) of Nightwish as a parallel figure in European symphonic metal reflects the shared aesthetic territory — both musicians who serve the orchestral production as guitarists rather than using the orchestra to serve the guitar. His connection to Timo Tolkki (Series 2 #177) as a fellow European power metal architect of the same generation reflects the shared neoclassical tradition applied in different national contexts (Italian and Finnish). His connection to Alexi Laiho (Series 2 #176) as a fellow neoclassical metal guitarist of the same era reflects the pan-European character of the neoclassical metal tradition in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Internal Links:
- Emppu Vuorinen of Nightwish, a parallel figure in European symphonic metal who serves the orchestral production as guitarist at #178
- Timo Tolkki of Stratovarius, a fellow European power metal architect of the same generation at #177
- Alexi Laiho of Children of Bodom, a fellow neoclassical metal guitarist of the same era at #176
- Ihsahn of Emperor, representing the Scandinavian symphonic metal tradition that developed alongside Rhapsody’s Italian approach at #169
Frequently Asked Questions: Luca Turilli Rhapsody of Fire Guitars & Gear
What guitar does Luca Turilli play?
Turilli’s primary guitar is the Capelli Guitars Luca Turilli Custom Model — a custom instrument made by Italian luthier Cristoph Capelli in three colorways (blue, red, and white). The guitar features DiMarzio Tone Zone (bridge) and DiMarzio Air Norton (neck) pickups, confirmed directly in the “Visions from the Enchanted Lands” DVD where Turilli points to each pickup and identifies them. Before the Capelli relationship, he used Ibanez S Series guitars — also confirmed in the same DVD where he explains his history with Ibanez before getting the custom instruments made.
What amplifiers has Luca Turilli used?
His documented amplifier history includes Mesa Boogie amplifiers (historical), the Line 6 HD147 digital modeling amplifier (specifically for recording Triumph or Agony, 2006), and the ENGL Powerball II (used on his last Rhapsody of Fire tour in 2011). He runs these amp heads through Marshall cabinets. His evolution from tube amplifiers (Mesa) to digital modeling (Line 6) to German tube (ENGL) reflects the same tonal exploration visible across other European power metal guitarists of the same generation.
What is “Hollywood Metal” or “Film Score Metal”?
“Hollywood Metal” (later called “Film Score Metal”) is the genre term that Luca Turilli and Alex Staropoli coined to describe the Rhapsody of Fire approach: heavy metal that treats the full symphony orchestra and choir as primary compositional voices equal to the guitar, bass, and drums. The primary production reference is John Williams’s cinematic orchestral language, combined with the Italian operatic tradition and neoclassical power metal’s technical guitar vocabulary. The genre they established with Legendary Tales (1997) influenced virtually every subsequent symphonic metal band.
What is the Emerald Sword Saga?
The Emerald Sword Saga is the multi-album fantasy narrative concept that spans the first nine Rhapsody/Rhapsody of Fire albums. The saga — a fantasy epic featuring the hero Dar-Kunor, a quest for the Emerald Sword, battles with dark forces, and the specific mythology of Aghony, Holy Empire of Algalord, and other fictional locations — gives the band’s album sequence a narrative coherence unusual in heavy metal. Tolkien’s influence is explicitly acknowledged. Turilli wrote all the lyrics for the saga; the albums serve as chapters in the narrative, with each album advancing the story.
How did Luca Turilli survive cancer at 16?
The Wikipedia and Kamelot Wiki documentation confirms that “in 1993, Turilli survived cancer at age 16.” The specific type and treatment of his cancer are not documented in the available primary sources that focus on his musical career. He was sixteen in 1993 — the same year he co-founded Thundercross/Rhapsody — and the biographical juxtaposition of cancer survival and band formation in the same year suggests that music and creative focus were part of his recovery and return to activity.
What was the 2011 Rhapsody of Fire split?
In August 2011, Rhapsody of Fire announced a “friendly split” into two separate Rhapsody entities: Alex Staropoli and vocalist Fabio Lione continued under the Rhapsody of Fire name, while Turilli (along with bassist Patrice Guers and guitarist Dominique Leurquin) formed Luca Turilli’s Rhapsody. Both entities recorded new material simultaneously from 2011 onward. The split was reportedly motivated by creative differences and personal dynamics after fifteen years of collaboration. From April 2017 to March 2018, the original members reunited for a 20th Anniversary Farewell Tour; in June 2018, Turilli confirmed the reunion of the original lineup, and subsequently Turilli/Lione Rhapsody was formed.
What is Luca Turilli’s Neoclassical Revelation?
“Luca Turilli’s Neoclassical Revelation” is an online guitar course launched by Turilli in 2008, named for his neoclassical playing style. The course focuses on the application of classical harmonic language — harmonic minor scales, Phrygian dominant modes, diminished arpeggios, pedal tone technique, and sweep-picking — to electric guitar within a power metal context. The neoclassical approach draws from his classical piano education (absorbed through his father’s influence) and from the Malmsteen neoclassical tradition that shaped European power metal guitar in the 1980s and 1990s.
