He graduated in violin and composition at the Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory in Milan (Italy), Lavagnino deserves a special place in film music for his contribution to documentaries. He gave reportages a new dimension; he did not elaborate folkloristic themes, neither he passively adapts the instruments of a certain musical civilization: he identifies the elements that characterize a country under the "sound profile" and gives a plausible equivalent. For this aim, Lavagnino uses all the possibilities given by modern technology, his goal is to "build" a sound. The main collaborator of a musician is no more the orchestra director, but the sound engineer. This attitude did not prevent Lavagnino from producing great orchestra music. In the classical field, he wrote a Concert for violin and orchestra and a Mass for chorus and orchestra. He began composing for cinema in 1951, for film director Orson Welles' Othello. Since then, he wrote music for hundreds of films, among which: Nero's Weekend (Nero's Mistress (1956)) with Gloria Swanson and Brigitte Bardot, The Naked Maja (1958) with Ava Gardner, Imperial Venus (Imperial Venus (1962)) with Gina Lollobrigida, Falstaff (Chimes at Midnight (1965)) directed by and starring Orson Welles, and many others.