The Maestro’s Baton Lies Still
Ennio Morricone 1928-2020
Imagine if Max Steiner’s composition, “Tara’s Theme,” never made it to the final cut of the 1939 movie classic “Gone With the Wind.” It would have immensely depleted the movie’s potency. Music in movies is an invaluable component. It makes the movie.
There have been experimental movie genres, in which no music is featured. Avant-garde movies are fine and challenging, but nothing can beat the movie epic.
Beginning with Bach, Chopin, and Mozart, ascending to Stravinsky, and reaching all the way to George Gershwin: at the front of the line stands Ennio Morricone. Out of the 20th and the 21st Centuries came Ennio Morricone, the Italian composer who changed the way musical soundtracks figure in cinema.
Ennio Morricone attended a conservatory at the age of 12 where he learned to play the trumpet. He studied Choral music and music theory and, eventually, he transformed into a conductor.
I will cut to the chase here because Ennio had a festinating life and it would require, at least, a lengthy, well-researched book to give a fair account of his life. I will focus on his career in cinema, beginning with the Spaghetti Western years.
In the 1950’s, foreign cinema was popular in America with a minority of culture vultures. European censorship standards were more lenient, so soft-core porn could be enjoyed in foreign film theaters in cities across the U.S. If you wanted to see full frontal nudity, foreign movies were your ticket. The late 50’s featured the Hercules movies imported from Italy, which hit the drive-in circuit. In the early 60’s, those movies made their way onto local T.V. They were popular for a few years, then the public tired of them.
Before long, Italian filmmakers decided to make American Westerns Italian style. Movie critics labeled them “Spaghetti Westerns,” which was intended as an insult. Well, the label stuck and Italian filmmakers eventually made hundreds of these movies in the 60’s and 70’s.
One filmmaker prominent in the genre was Sergio Leone. He and Ennio Morricone had a long friendship and they ultimately collaborated on all of Leone’s movies. Leone was an ambitious man who initially worked as an assistant director, but wanted to make his own films. His first Italian western was “A Fistful of Dollars,” in 1964, which was the second feature on which he and Morricone collaborated. It could have been a cheap, low budget western, but Morricone’s musical soundtrack elevated it. Theirs was the most successful and creative partnership in cinema history.
Ennio Morricone was experimental himself. He spent time with a lot of artists by whom he was greatly inspired. He wrote many songs for T.V. commercials so he could pay his rent. He was not a classically trained snob, so in his musical compositions, he would use everyday gadgets, such as a ticking clock or a ringing telephone. In scoring his first western (“A Fistful of Dollars”), he employed common whistling by someone as the score’s lead instrument. His music gave the low budget movie an eerie and hypnotic quality to it. Ultimately, the film became popular in Europe and Ennio was in demand to score Westerns.
Ennio’s Westerns’ scores had Flamenco and Spanish flavors to them. They were otherwise eclectic, as well. He would interject hillbilly tones, or a surf guitar into various parts of a composition. He could insert a standard 4/4 time signature, transition to a 2/4 meter, move all the way to a 6/8 time, and then return to a 4/4 standard time. His music can range from “Affettvoso” or “Zando.” Yeah, he was versatile.
For the 1968, Anthony Quinn movie, “Guns of San Sebastian,” Ennio created one of the most beautiful scores in cinema. He employed an Italian opera singer, but instead of having her sing the score with words, she vocalized it in sounds. Thus, her voice was an orchestral instrument.
For the first time in my life, no matter what the plot, I’d readily go to a movie when I saw it was Ennio Morricone who wrote the musical score. He is that good!
I am sad that I will never see him conduct an orchestra, which makes my existential depression justified. However, I still own many of his soundtrack recordings and can easily locate more, as they are plentifully preserved in recordings for all time.
