By Joe Mogilevski
When one thinks of classical music, there are certain stereotypical images that come to the average mind: men in tuxedos with women in satin dresses, velvet-draped theaters filled with orchestral performers, etc. What doesn’t usually come to mind are desolate mesas and wind-swept cattle towns. Yet that exact dichotomy is what propelled Ennio Morricone’s career.
Morricone, born in 1928 in Rome, wrote his earliest compositions in his childhood. Years later he began composing for radio and was not particularly well known. Morricone came into his own, however, when he began writing music for films. His earliest scores were for light comedies, including Le Cage aux Folles, the movie that would be remade as The Birdcage. However, he found his niche when he began his collaborations with Sergio Leone, starting with the movie A Fist Full of Dollars, in 1964.
As the composer for A Fist Full of Dollars, Morricone found himself limited due to the budget. As necessity is the mother of invention, he found ways to improvise. Gunshots and whip cracks, among other devices, were interwoven into the music as both fill-ins for a limited orchestra and to punctuate the action the music was accompanying. This laid the groundwork for his work for the other two films in the ‘man with no name’ trilogy. Of his compositions for the trilogy, one piece, in particular, became famous: ‘The Ecstasy of Gold.’ This song accompanies by wordless vocals from Edda Dell’Orso, has been used and sampled by numerous other artists, ostensibly as an homage, in a variety of genres.
His collaboration with Leone a success, Morricone would work with the director on numerous films, until Sergio’s death in 1989. Leone was 60 when he passed.
Leone was far from the only director Morricone would work with, let alone his only westerns. Between 1966 and 1973, he composed music for seven films for director Sergio Corbucci, and another five films for Sergio Sollima. With the exception of one movie, all of these films were westerns. In addition to these films, he composed music for numerous other ‘spaghetti Westerns’. His style, first developed in the ‘Dollars’ trilogy, merged the action on the screen with the music setting the mood.
Despite Westerns falling out of favor in cinema, Morricone and his music persisted and found him composing for horror, political intrigue, comedy, gangster, and dramatic films. His filmography has more than 400 titles to his credit, each having used at least one of the 500 pieces he composed for film. Several of the directors he has worked with include Brian de Palma, Barry Levinson, And Giuseppe Tornatore.
Recently, Morricone has composed for Quintin Tarantino’s film The Hateful Eight, for which the composer won his first Oscar in 2015.
Aside from his work in film composition, Morricone has also recorded a number of solo albums, in addition to movie soundtracks from his many films. In more recent years, he released an album with Hayley Westenra, titled ‘Paradiso’ (released in 2011. on the Decca, Universal
label), and was a mix of some of Morricone’s older pieces with several compositions specifically for the album. The album went gold in Westenra’s native New Zealand, after reaching #1 on NZ’s official charts. Morricone’s work has also inspired pieces, including his instrumentals inspiring lyrics. The song ‘Nella Fantasia’ was originally an instrumental titled ‘Gabriel’s Oboe’, a piece he composed for the film The Mission. The lyrics Morricone’s work inspired were written by Chiara Ferrau, and sung by British soprano, Sarah Brightman.
Even in his 90th year, Ennio Morricone was still an active composer, living in his native Italy. In addition to his work on films composition, he was performing live music, having performed more than 250 concerts by 2001. His final live tour was in the summer of 2019.
Morricone’s life has been one of music in its many forms. The notability of his composing for so many Western films, effectively creating the genre of music associated with Westerns to this day, is the seeming incongruity of a rough and gritty genre of film with a refined style of music. Yet melding of opposite worlds is precisely what Morricone achieved. Taking his skill in more refined forms of music, using a skeletal orchestra, and improvising with sound, he forged a new sound, at once rough and intense, yet still refined and artistic. His compositions truly prove that classical really is for everyone. Even the lone cowboy on the range.
RIP Ennio Morricone
10 November 1928 – 6 July 2020
Visit the composer’s official website: enniomorricone.org to discover more about his incredible career and legacy