Tributes as Oscar-winning music maestro Ennio Morricone dies at 91
HE CREATED the theme to one of the silver screen’s greatest ever westerns, the famous refrain of which is indelibly linked to the Wild West.
Ennio Morricone produced more than 400 original scores for feature films, but it is the main theme tune to The Good, The Bad And The Ugly for which he will be best remembered.
And tributes were paid yesterday to the Italian composer following his death at the age of 91.
The Oscar-winning composer, known as the Maestro, died in a Rome hospital early yesterday of complications after he broke his leg in a fall, his lawyer Giorgio Assumma said.
Fellow composer Hans Zimmer spoke of Morricone’s influence during an appearance on BBC Breakfast.
He said: “Ennio was an icon and icons just don’t go away, icons are forever.”
He added: “He was a major influence on me.
“The first movie I ever saw was Once Upon A Time In The West .I heard the music and saw those
images and I said, ‘That’s what I want to do’.”
Zimmer said Morricone’s music was “always outstanding,
and done with great emotional fortitude and great intellectual thought”.
Film director Edgar Wright paid tribute on Twitter, posting a series of themes written by Morricone.
He said: “Where to even begin with iconic composer Ennio Morricone? He could make an average movie into a must see, a good movie into art, and a great movie into legend.
“He hasn’t been off my stereo my entire life. What a legacy of work he leaves behind.”
Film composer Daniel Pemberton, whose recent credits include Yesterday and Motherless Brooklyn, also paid tribute.
He wrote: “The way he mixed experimental sound, heartbreaking melodies and raw emotion into everything he did made him, for me, the greatest film composer ever and a huge influence on my work.”
During a career that spanned decades and earned him a lifetime achievement Oscar in 2007, Morricone collaborated with some of the most renowned directors in the world. He took the best original score Oscar for Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight in 2016.
It is perhaps his work with Italian film-maker Sergio Leone – who was a school-mate of Morricone’s – that is the most instantly recognisable.
The Dollars trilogy of so-called spaghetti westerns from the 1960s were massively influential and made Clint Eastwood an international film star.
He could make an average movie into a must see, a great movie into legend.
Film director Edgar Wright.