Maestro Ennio Morricone (10 November 1928 – 6 July 2020), the versatile Italian composer, orchestrator and conductor, considered by many to be one of the greatest composers in cinema history, passed away today in Rome. He died at the Università Campus Bio-Medico in Rome following complications of a leg fracture from a fall last week. Morricone was 91. He is survived by his wife Maria Travia, whom he met in 1950, three sons and a daughter.
I was looking forward to writing another diary on his next birthday, but unfortunately, we will be writing an obituary instead. Morricone may be dead but the ripples of his life will be with us for a long long time.
Morricone composed over 400 scores for cinema and television, as well as over 100 classical works. We remember him best for his legendary scores for the “spaghetti westerns”, many made by filmmaker Sergio Leone, but his virtuosity covers a lot of other musical styles and medium.
Morricone was born Nov 10, 1928 in Rome, the son of Libera Ridolfi and Mario Morricone, a musician. His family came from Arpino, near Frosinone. Mario, his father, was a trumpet player who worked professionally in different light-music orchestras, while his mother Libera set up a small textile business.
Morricone wrote his first compositions when he was six years old. In 1946, he received his diploma in trumpet. After he graduated, he continued to work in classical composition and arrangement.
His first love was scoring classical pieces but, in order to make a living, he began composing background music for radio drama. He later turned his attention to film scores, but none of them made much impact until his old college friend Sergio Leone asked him to write the soundtrack for Per Un Pugno di Dollari (A Fistful of Dollars).
The rest, as they say, is history.
Even at the age of 91, Morricone was active, conducting concerts around Europe, culminating with his last series of concerts in Rome last year.
He composed at a prolific rate with over 500 major scores for films and television. Once asked how he maintained such a hectic pace, he quipped that “compared with the output of Bach, who composed a cantata a week, I am practically unemployed.”
He never bothered to learn English despite his prominent presence in Hollywood and never lost touch with his Italian roots, remaining in Rome for most of his life. He once said — "I was offered a free villa in Hollywood, but I said 'No thank you, I prefer to live in Rome.'"
Morricone’s Music
Let’s take a look at a sample of his best known music. There is such a vast body of work to choose from and such versatility of styles and scores, that we can barely cover a fraction of it here; so we will simply focus on some of his more popular creations. Thanks to modern technology, most of his works can be found on the Internet.
His versatility can be summed up in his own words — “If you scroll through all the movies I've worked on, you can understand how I was a specialist in westerns, love stories, political movies, action thrillers, horror movies, and so on. So in other words, I'm no specialist, because I've done everything. I'm a specialist in music.”
About his musical creations, Morricone said — ”They're all my children... every score I've done.”
We first present the scores from the three Spaghetti Western films directed by Sergio Leone, aka the Dollars Trilogy, performed by the Danish National Symphony Orchestra. These 3 performances are part of a set of concerts called 'Duellen - Morricone trækker først' (The Duel - Morricone draws first) held in January 2018, which included some of the music from various western and gangster movies. It is quite fascinating to watch the combination of instruments and vocals used to play these memorable melodies.
A Fistful of Dollars (1964)
For a Few Dollars More (1965)
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)
Music played a key role in the Dollars trilogy given that Sergio Leone had one the best film composers of all time at his disposal in Ennio Morricone. The article at www.denofgeek.com/… provides some keen insights into the three films, their director and their music -
The importance of Morricone's compositions is highlighted by the fact Leone, starting with For A Few Dollars More, would ask Morricone to write the music before shooting and would then direct to his music on-set.
His innovative, surreal music was also borne out of restraints - unable to afford a full orchestra, he would have been unable to replicate the grandiose sweep of the classic western scores even if he wanted to. Instead, the scores for the Dollars trilogy are a psychedelic mix of whistling, whip cracks, trumpets, wailing, gunshots and, crucially, the newly invented Fender guitar.
Scenes from Films
To refresh our memory about the dollar trilogy movies, here are some videos of the films. They help us appreciate the film-making style of Italian film maker Sergio Leone and his extensive use of music, extreme facial close-ups, lengthy sweeping shots, a paucity of dialogue and extended periods of silence, techniques we rarely get to see in modern films.
As Paul Martinovic at www.denofgeek.com/… writes about this scene from the final duel scene of the The Good, the Bad and the Ugly — “Everything culminates with the definitive Leone setpiece, a three-way Mexican stand-off that acts as a the culmination of the film, the trilogy, Leone's career, and the Spaghetti Western genre up to that point. It's all here: Morricone's untouchable music, the stunning landscape photography, those amazing faces, the perfectly judged editing, Leone's obsessive attention to detail and his unparalleled ability to use every inch of the frame. It's the best scene from a director who specialised in great scenes, 10 minutes of sheer cinematic perfection.”
This memorable cemetery scene from the Good, the Bad and the Ugly is one of the best scenes in cinematic history. The scene is a perfect melange of Morricone’s music (also known as L'estasi dell'Oro, or the Ecstasy of Gold), Eli Wallach’s brilliant acting and the sweeping cinematography and direction of Sergio Leone. Morricone said about the music in that film — ”I also used these realistic sounds in a psychological way. With The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, I used animal sounds - as you say, the coyote sound - so the sound of the animal became the main theme of the movie.”
The Final Duel scene from “For a Few Dollars More” -
Cinema Paradiso -
The Mission — “Gabriel's Oboe”
Your Love - Dulce Pontes, Ennio Morricone • Once Upon a Time in the West
The Guns of San Sebastian -
Malena — a beautiful movie -
The haunting music from this Italian/Soviet film “The Red Tent” is one of his finest compositions, IMHO. The film itself is quite interesting — it is based on the story of the tragic mission to rescue Umberto Nobile and other survivors of the crash of the airship Italia on an expedition to the North Pole. It features Sean Connery as the famed explorer Roald Amundsen, who died during the rescue mission.
Morricone won an Oscar for his work on Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight (2015), not that the legend needed an Oscar from Hollywood to cement his legacy. In a January 2016 interview, Morricone said working with Tarantin was “perfect ... because he gave me no cues, no guidelines. I wrote the score without Quentin Tarantino knowing anything about it, then he came to Prague when I recorded it and was very pleased. So the collaboration was based on trust and a great freedom for me.”
Live Concerts
Here is The Ecstasy of Gold conducted by Ennio Morricone himself in a beautiful setting in Venice in 2007 with the haunting voice of Susanna Rigacci.
Here is a more recent concert by Ennio Morricone in 2015 in Lyon, France.
And one from 2017, again in Lyon France.
Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion
Music and Chess
Morricone’s other passion was Chess. He said — ”Had I not become a composer, I would have wanted to be a chess player, but a high-level one, someone competing for the world title.”
Check out this wonderful interview from last year -
In time, I’ve discovered that strong links exist between chess and the musical notation system, set up as it is in durations and pitches. In chess, the two dimensions remain spatial, and time is what players have at their disposal in order to make the right move. In addition there are horizontal and vertical combinations, different graphic patterns, just like musical notes in harmony. Even still, one can pair patterns and plays as if they were instrumental parts in an orchestra. The player who doesn’t start—who has been assigned black chess pieces—has ten moves to choose from, before it is again the opponent’s turn—white chess pieces. The number of possible moves then grows exponentially with the following plays.
This makes me think about counterpoint. There are analogies between the two disciplines—if one is interested in looking for them—and progress in one field often times is linked to progress in the other. It is not by chance that mathematicians and musicians are generally among the best chess players. Take Mark Taimanov—an exceptional pianist and chess player—Jean-Philippe Rameau, Sergei Prokofiev, John Cage, my friends Aldo Clementi and Egisto Macchi. Chess is related to mathematics and mathematics is related to music, as Pythagoras claimed. And this is all the more true for the kind of music Clementi composed, a music substantively based on tone rows, numbers, and combinations … the same key elements as in chess.
Ultimately, music, chess, and mathematics are all creative activities. They rely on graphical and logical procedures that also involve probability and the unexpected.
Morricone even composed the “Inno degli scacchisti” (Chess Players’ Anthem) for the Chess Olympiad in Turin in 2006.
Obituaries and Tributes
From the Prime Minister of Italy — “We will always remember, with infinite gratitude, the artistic genius of the Maestro #EnnioMorricone. It made us dream, emotion, reflect, writing memorable notes that will remain indelible in the history of music and cinema.”
President Serio Mattarella - "The passing of Ennio Morricone deprives us of a distinguished and brilliant artist. A refined and popular musician at the same time, he left a profound mark on the musical history of the second half of the twentieth century. Through his soundtracks he contributed greatly to spreading and strengthening the prestige of the Italy in the world. I wish to convey my deep condolences and sentiments of affectionate closeness to the Maestro's family ".
Sharing his memories of the late composer with Vatican News’ Giancarlo La Vella, Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi recalled that Ennio Morricone was a man of faith.
From the BBC -
Epilogue
About Death, Morricone wrote — “Everyone has to die. I'm not particularly scared about it. What really frightens me is that if I go before my wife, I will leave her alone, and vice versa. The ideal would be to die together.”
RIP Ennio Morricone and may you live long and prosper, in our hearts and wherever your next journey takes you, across the fabric of the Universe.
What are your memories of Ennio Morricone, his music and his films? Your favorite films and scores? Do you still listen to his music — for relaxation and/or for inspiration?
Further Reading
- www.enniomorricone.org
- en.wikipedia.org/…
- Looking back at Sergio Leone’s Dollars trilogy — www.denofgeek.com/...
- A Fistful of Drama: Musical Form in the Dollars Trilogy (Masters’ Thesis) — etd.ohiolink.edu/…
P.S. To all of you, please stay safe from the Coronavirus and please take precautions to avoid falls.