Ennio Morricone
Prolific composer and conductor who became an Oscar-winning giant of film music
ENNIO Morricone, who died last Monday aged 91, was an Italian composer and conductor who wrote the music for some 500 films, including several of Sergio Leone’s “spaghetti westerns”.
His melodic and evocative scores could also be found accompanying films as diverse as La Cage aux Folles (1978), The Untouchables (1987) and The Mission (1986), for which he studied the musical practices of South America in the 17th Century.
From the coyote call that opens The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) to the rolling wistfulness of Once Upon a Time in America (1984), Morricone’s music was always written with both eyes firmly fixed on the on-screen action.
Far more than merely an accompaniment to the drama, it formed an integral part of the mood and atmosphere. Films such City of Joy (1992) featured dramatic swells, while jagged strings pervaded thrillers such as Wolf (1994).
Despite the endearing popularity of his work, he did not pick up an Oscar until 2007, and even then it was an honorary one presented by Clint Eastwood.
In 2016 he took home another statuette for the score of The Hateful Eight (2015), Quentin Tarantino’s American Civil war thriller and Morricone’s first complete western score in 34 years.
He famously incorporated everyday sounds into his scores alongside conventional harmonies. They include tin cans, typewriters and gunshots — what he called “found sounds”.
Morricone’s refusal to live in the United States set him apart from the mainstream of Tinseltown. He also persisted in a somewhat perverse refusal to learn English — so he could flirt with attractive translators sent by the film studios, he said.
Ennio Morricone was born in the Trastevere district of Rome on November 10, 1928, when Mussolini was at the height of his powers. His father, Mario, was a trumpeter, while his mother, Libera Ridolfi, ran a small textiles company. Ennio, who was a classmate of Sergio Leone at John the Baptist school in Rome, was composing his first music and learning the trumpet by the age of six.
By the age of 12 he was enrolled at the National Academy of Santa Cecilia. Soon he was playing in recording sessions for the post-war Italian film industry.
In 1958, he took a job as music assistant with RAI, the Italian broadcaster, but left after one day; soon he was working for the record company RCA as a studio arranger.
By the late 1950s, he had orchestrated hundreds of songs for Italian singers such as Gianni Morandi and Gino Paoli.
However, the big screen was calling. His first fulllength score was for Luciano Salce’s The Fascist (1961); by the time he had completed the music for Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West (1968).
Typically Morricone, who lived in a 17th century building overlooking the Forum in Rome, would rise at 5am and, to avoid the hustle and bustle of his family, lock himself in his study, where he reputedly kept dozens of stolen bars of hotel soap in his desk.
Between his big-screen works, Morricone continued to write non-film music, including a ballet (Requiem for Destiny), and Riflessi (1990), three pieces for unaccompanied cello. Classical performers in turn paid their respects, with the cellist Yo Yo Ma recording an album of Morricone arrangements. There was also an array of jazz and easy listening music.
Other film scores included Giuseppe Tornatore’s Cinema Paradiso (1988), Joffe’s
City of Joy (1992), and Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds (2009).
Other directors he worked with included Franco Zeffirelli
(Hamlet, 1990, with Mel Gibson), Roman Polanski (Frantic, 1988, with Harrison Ford), Oliver Stone (U Turn, 1997, with Sean Penn and Jennifer Lopez), and Warren Beatty
(Bulworth, 1998, with Beatty and Halle Berry). His composition Chi Mai (“Whoever”) was used in the television series An Englishman’s Castle and The Life and Times of David Lloyd George; it went to No 2 in the UK in 1981.
Morricone was nominated six times for Academy Awards (for Days of Heaven, The Mission, The Untouchables, Bugsy, Malena, The Hateful Eight), but — save for the honorary Oscar, awarded “for his magnificent and multifaceted contributions to the art of film music” — he won only once, for The Hateful Eight.
He also picked up a slew of Grammy awards, Golden Globes and Baftas, as well as an honorary doctorate from the University of Liverpool.
Despite the widespread acclaim, and his insistence on always being addressed as “Il Maestro”, Morricone remained in some ways a modest man at heart.
In 2004, he told an interviewer he was “satisfied with what I’ve done. But I still think I can improve. You can always do better, you know”.
In 1956 Morricone married Maria Travia, who wrote lyrics for several of his works, including the Latin texts for The Mission. They had a daughter and three sons; one of the sons, Andrea, became a film composer.