I was so excited to interview award-winning Italian film music composer, Marco Werba. Marco is a versatile composer whose credits include, “The Island of Forgiveness”, “Giallo”, “Dead on Time”, “The Mystery of Britannic” and more. Marco recently collaborated with Welsh soprano, and classical crossover favorite, Ellen Williams on the songs “Rosa’s song” (from the Tunisian movie “The Island of Forgiveness” and “Masquerade” (from the Spanish movie “Hybris”).
Jannie Rawlinson: Let’s take you right back to where it all started. As a child, were you always drawn to music?
Marco Werba: That’s a good question. No, I had this very strange career. My first love was cinema, I wanted to become a film director. With my father, who was an American reporter for Variety Magazine. I went to see only two or three films with him. One of those films was “Logan’s Run” directed by Michael Anderson in 1976. I loved the movie so much that I went to see it again and at a certain point, I realized that there was a wonderful music by Jerry Goldsmith (Academy Award Winning Composer) that I didn’t notice the first time I saw the film (the audience usually doesn’t pay attention to music. They feel the music as an emotion given by the movie but they don’t understand that it’s the music that’s giving that emotion). I loved this film score so much that I bought the LP… and from that moment, I decided I wanted to become a film composer and not any more a film director.
Jannie Rawlinson: Wow, that’s incredible! Did you start practicing your music compositions at an early age then?
Marco Werba: Well, I started to study music privately. And then at the end, I also did music school, the Conservatory in Italy. But I studied orchestration of musical films at the “Mannes College of Music” in New York, and the conducting masterclass in France. All with the intention of writing music for film, that was my goal. I also sang in the Vatican Choir, did some Gregorian music, religious music, and wrote some concert music but my main interest was to write music for films.
Jannie Rawlinson: Did you have anyone inspiring you from a young age? You mentioned your father worked for a very famous magazine. So did you have any siblings who were interested in music as well?
Marco Werba: No, not really, I was the only one in the family interested in music. I listened to a lot of compositions/ film scores… By listening to the music of the other composers, I realized which of them had a very personal style, and which didn’t have a style… I think it’s very important to listen to all the other composers, and have a precise idea of what has been done until now.
Jannie Rawlinson: It’s not just the music, though, is it? That’s very important but I think the silence sometimes is really important.
Marco Werba: Well, Jannie – you are smart and intelligent. I’m always trying to convince directors that sometimes it’s better to leave silence, in order to give more importance to the music when the music arrives. If you put music on all the time, it will lose its power, its importance. So silence is very, very important.
Jannie Rawlinson: So when you are commissioned to do a film score, how would you visualize what kind of music you compose?
Marco Werba: Well, it’s difficult – every time it’s very tricky. It’s a tricky question, because it seems easy to write the music for a film but it isn’t because there are many possible solutions. I listened to an interview to Hans Zimmer, it was very funny, because he said that he received this big producer and he asked him to write the music. He was very happy, but when the producer left the house, he realized that he didn’t know what to do! He didn’t know what music to write. He was almost thinking of calling back the producer, and saying that it was better to call John Williams instead of him. But trying a few musical ideas, slowly, he finally succeeded in finding the right music theme. This is the way of working – you try. You try different musical ideas until you find the right one.
Jannie Rawlinson: So do you have a particular film score that you’re extremely proud of?
Marco Werba: Probably “Giallo” by Dario Argento, starring Adrien Brody, is the most important film score I have done because it was an American production by a very well-known Italian director specialized in thrillers and there was an Academy Award winner actor (Adrien Brody) in the cast. For this movie I’ve written a very rich film score with many music themes.
Jannie Rawlinson: Do you conduct the majority of your film scores or do you work with other conductors as well?
Marco Werba: That’s a good question. I usually conduct my own scores. It depends, you know, for example, if you record in remote session with, for example, the Bulgarian Orchestra, and there is already a conductor there I will not go there to conduct the orchestra. I will leave the local conductor to conduct the orchestra. In the past, I have worked with an orchestra that already had a conductor. Also in that case, I gave the chance to the other conductor to conduct my music. so it depends, but mainly I conduct my own music.
Jannie Rawlinson: I think music is very, very important especially for the way the world is at the moment, I think music has a real healing property. Would you agree?
Marco Werba: Yeah, music can give the idea of many different emotions. Music can scare you, it can make you laugh, it can make you cry. This latest is maybe the kind of music I prefer, I like to give strong emotions..
Jannie Rawlinson: There is much more in the podcast where Marco shares more about his core, awards he’s won, collaborators (including Ellen Williams), his advice for young singers and more.