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Ennio Morricone (born November 10, 1928) is an Italian composer and conductor.

He is considered one of the most prolific and influential film composers of his era. Morricone has composed and arranged scores for more than 500 film and TV productions.

He is well-known for his long-term collaborations with international acclaimed directors such as Sergio Leone, Brian De Palma, Barry Levinson, and Giuseppe Tornatore.

He wrote the characteristic film scores of Leone’s Spaghetti Westerns A Fistful of Dollars (1964), For a Few Dollars More (1965), The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) as well as the scores for John Carpenter’s horror movie The Thing (1982), Brian De Palma’s The Untouchables (1987) and more recently Tornatore’s Baaria – La porta del vento (2009).

Morricone has won two Grammy Awards, two Golden Globes, five Anthony Asquith Awards for Film Music by BAFTA in 1979–1992 and the Polar Music Prize in 2010. He has been nominated for five Academy Awards for Best Music, Original Score during 1979–2001.

He received the Academy Honorary Award in 2007 “for his magnificent and multifaceted contributions to the art of film music”. Morricone and Alex North are the only composers to receive the honorary Oscar since the award’s introduction in 1928.

Life and Career

Morricone was born in Rome, the son of Libera and Mario Morricone, a jazz trumpeter. Morricone wrote his first compositions when he was six years old and was encouraged to develop these natural talents.

Compelled to take up the trumpet, he had first gone to the National Academy of Santa Cecilia  to take lessons on the instrument at the age of nine.

Morricone formally entered the conservatory in 1940 at the age of 12, enrolling in a four-year harmony program.

According to various reports, he completed it in either two years or six months (date approximate). He studied the trumpet, composition, choral music, and choral direction under Goffredo Petrassi, who deeply influenced him and to whom Morricone has dedicated concert pieces.

These were the difficult years of World War II in the heavily bombed “open city”; the composer remarked that what he mostly remembered of those years was the hunger.

His wartime experiences influenced many of his scores for films set in that period.

Classical music

After he graduated, he continued to work in classical composition and arrangement. In 1946, Morricone received his trumpet diploma and in the same year he composed “Il Mattino” (“The Morning”) for voice and piano on a text by Fukuko, first in a group of 7 “youth” Lieder. Other serious compositions are “Imitazione” (1947) for voice and piano on a text by Giacomo Leopardi and “Intimita” for voice and piano on a text by Olinto Dini.

In the early 1950s, Morricone began writing his first background music for radio dramas. Nonetheless he continued composing classical pieces as “Distacco I e Distacco II” for voice and piano on a text by Ranieri Gnoli, “Verra’ la Morte” for contralto and piano on a text by Cesare Pavese, “Oboe Sommerso” for baritone and five instruments on a text by Salvatore Quasimodo.

Early pop arrangements

In 1956, Morricone started to support his family by playing in a jazz band and arranging pop songs for the Italian broadcasting service RAI. He was hired by RAI  in 1958, but quit his job on his first day at work when he was told that broadcasting of music composed by employees was forbidden by a company rule. Subsequently, Morricone became a top studio arranger at RCA.

Film Scores

Well-versed in a variety of musical idioms from his RCA experience, Morricone began composing film scores in the early 1960s.  Though his first films were undistinguished, Morricone’s arrangement of an American folk song intrigued director and former schoolmate Sergio Leone.

Leone hired Morricone, and together they created a distinctive score to accompany Leone’s different version of the Western, A Fistful of Dollars (1964). As budget strictures limited Morricone’s access to a full orchestra, he used gunshots, cracking whips, whistle, voices, guimbarde (jaw harp), trumpets, and the new Fender electric guitar, instead of orchestral arrangements of Western standards à la John Ford.

Morricone used his special effects to punctuate and comically tweak the action—cluing in the audience to the taciturn man’s ironic stance. Though sonically bizarre for a movie score, Morricone’s music was viscerally true to Leone’s vision.

As memorable as Leone’s close-ups, harsh violence, and black comedy, Morricone’s work helped to expand the musical possibilities of film scoring. Morricone was initially billed on the film as Dan Savio.

Morricone composed music for about 40 Westerns (the last was North Star (1996)), most of them Spaghetti Westerns.

He scored Sergio Leone’s Spaghetti Westerns, from A Fistful of Dollars (1964) and including For a Few Dollars More (1965), The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966), and Once Upon a Time in the West (1968), as well as later films such as A Fistful of Dynamite (1971), My Name Is Nobody (1973), and A Genius, Two Partners and a Dupe (1975). The collaboration with Leone is considered one of the exemplary collaborations between a director and a composer.

Touring

Since 2001, Morricone has been on a world tour, the latter part sponsored by Giorgio Armani, with the Orchestra Roma Sinfonietta, touring London (Barbican 2001; 75th birthday Concerto, Royal Albert Hall 2003), Paris, Verona, and Tokyo. Morricone performed his classic film scores at the Munich Philharmonie in 2005 and Hammersmith Apollo Theatre in London, UK, on 2006-12-01 and 2006-12-02.

He made his North American concert debut on January 29, 2007 Auditorio Nacional in Mexico City and four days later at Radio City Music Hall  in New York City. The previous evening, Morricone had already presented at the United Nations a concert comprising some of his film themes, as well as the cantata Voci dal silenzio to welcome the new Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon. A Los Angeles Times  review bemoaned the poor acoustics and opined of Morricone: “His stick technique is adequate, but his charisma as a conductor is zero.” Morricone, though, has said: “Conducting has never been important to me. If the audience comes for my gestures, they had better stay outside.”

On December 12, 2007, Morricone conducted the Roma Sinfonietta at the Wiener Stadthalle in Vienna, presenting a selection of his own works. Together with the Roma Sinfonietta and the Belfast Philharmonic Choir, Morricone performed at the Opening Concerts of the Belfast Festival at Queen’s, in the Waterfront Hall on October 17 and 18, 2008. Morricone and Roma Sinfonietta also held a concert at the Belgrade Arena (Belgrade, Serbia) on February 14, 2009.

On April 10, 2010, Morricone conducted a concert at the Royal Albert Hall in London with the Roma Sinfonietta and (as in all of his previous London concerts) the Crouch End Festival Chorus. On August 27, 2010, he conducted a concert in Hungary. Two other concerts took place in Verona and Sofia (Bulgaria) on 11 and 17 September 2010.

Academy Award

Morricone received an honorary Academy Award on February 25, 2007, presented by Clint Eastwood, “for his magnificent and multifaceted contributions to the art of film music.” With the statuette came a standing ovation. Though nominated five times, he had not previously received an Oscar. In conjunction with the honor, Morricone released a tribute album, We All Love Ennio Morricone, that featured as its centerpiece Celine Dion’s rendition of “I Knew I Loved You” (based on “Deborah’s Theme” from Once Upon a Time in America), which she performed at the ceremony.

Behind-the-scenes studio production and recording footage of “I Knew I Loved You” can be viewed in the debut episode of the QuincyJones.com Podcast. The lyric, as with Morricone’s Love Affair, had been penned by Oscar-winning husband-and-wife duo Marilyn and Alan Bergman. Morricone’s acceptance speech was in his native Italian tongue and was interpreted by Clint Eastwood, who stood to his left. Eastwood and Morricone had in fact met two days earlier—for the first time in 40 years—at a reception.

Recent Activity

More recently Morricone provided the string arrangements on Morrissey’s “Dear God Please Help Me” from the album Ringleader of the Tormentors in 2006.

Quentin Tarantino originally wanted Morricone to compose the soundtrack for his most recent film, Inglourious Basterds. However, Morricone refused because of the sped-up production schedule of the film. Tarantino did use several Morricone tracks from previous films in the soundtrack.

Morricone instead wrote the music for Baaria – La porta del vento, the most recent movie by Giuseppe Tornatore. The composer is also writing music for Tornatore’s upcoming movie Leningrad.

Overview

Ennio Morricone has sold over 50 million records worldwide, including 6.5 million copies in France and more than two million albums in Korea.

His music is still being enjoyed everywhere today ~ you may have heard his music on Master Chef and on the Nike Sportswear advert in this past month.

Renowned for his famous Spaghetti Western Music, he has also over 600 scores to his name including Film Scores, Opera & TV, more than any other composer. Ennio Morricone’s music can be heard on the various company videos.

The business owner has been associated with Ennio Morricone for the past 45 years.

Video

Click any of the icons below to watch the Ennio Morricone video.

1. The Good, The Bad & The Ugly ~ The Good, The Bad & The Ugly ~ Verona Arena 2010
2. The Good, The Bad & The Ugly ~ Main Title ~ Munich 2005
3. The Good, The Bad & The Ugly ~ The Ecstacy of Gold ~ Verona Arena 2010
4. Ostinato ~ In Search of the Common File ~ Verona Arena 2010
5. Cinema Paradiso ~ Nuovo Cinema Paradiso ~ Pesaro 2010
6. A Fistful of Dynamite ~ Main Title ~ Warsaw 2009
7. Once Upon A Time in America ~ Main Title ~ Verona Arena 2010
8. The Legend of 1900 ~ The legend of the Pianist ~ Verona Arena 2010
9. Once Upon A Time in The West ~ Main Title ~ Verona Arena 2010
10. The Mission ~ Gabriels Oboe ~ Munich 2005
11. Morricone – Chille ~ il-bouno-il-brutto-il-cattivo
12. Extasis del Oro El bueno, el malo y el feo
13. Ecstasy of Gold – Scene from The Good, The Bad & The Ugly (opens in a new window)