Ennio Morricone was one the most influential and iconic film composers of all time. During the course of his prolific career, the man composed over 400 scores for a wide range of films, from the classic sounds of the Spaghetti Westerns that helped launch his career, to comedies, dramas, science fiction and everything in between.

Morricone, who died on July 6, 2020, also composed an extensive repertoire of concert and chamber music for ensembles ranging from solo instrumentalists to symphony orchestras. 

In addition to all of this, he was an excellent trumpet player who helped propel the experiments in the avant-garde in Italian music in the 1970s and 80s.

In short, Morricone is a composer and musician that everyone should be familiar with.

Morricone’s music spans the gamut of styles, aesthetic sense and form. His inclusion of non-musical objects into film scores was groundbreaking at the time, a move he largely attributed to the influence of contemporary classical music of composers like Pierre Boulez and Karlheinz Stockhausen. 

Morricone was born in Rome, Italy in 1928. His father was an active trumpet player and Morricone began learning several instruments and music theory from a young age. 

His talent for music was recognised quite early, and he soon began attending classes at Saint Cecilia Conservatory, where he studied for many years.

During the early part of his career, Morricone primarily worked as an arranger for orchestras and ensembles, recording music for radio, television, and later, for RCA Victor.

His interest in film music emerged primarily from a practical standpoint. In the years after World War II, a new style of Italian Realist cinema emerged. After working as an arranger and ghost writer for many film scores, Morricone came to the conclusion that he could do the composer's job much better.

It was a fateful meeting with a childhood friend, Sergio Leone, that would provide Morricone with the opportunity to break into the world of film music in a serious way.

A CAREER LAUNCH WITH ‘THE ECSTASY OF GOLD’

“The Ecstasy of Gold”, a score from Sergio Leone’s 1966 film The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly is one of Morricone’s best known works.

Leone and Morricone began collaborating in 1964 on the first installment of The Dollars Trilogy (A Fistful Of Dollars, For A Few Dollars More and The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly).

The films arguably launched the careers of Morricone, Leone, and the actor Clint Eastwood.

The cue opens with a soft, yet driving piano figure with a gentle melody floating over the top. Slightly ominous bells and a snare drum roll punctuate the line. After the second iteration of the melody, a string pad swells from below, a marching beat develops on the snare drum, and a female vocalist takes over the main melody. The mood becomes outwardly triumphant, nearly ecstatic, as it builds to a crescendo.

Towards the last third of the piece, the piece reaches its climax, with the full string section, percussion, and choir backing up the trumpet on the most powerful iteration of the melody.

Morricone’s brilliant and powerful use of the trumpet is one of his hallmarks.

DISCOVERING A BEST-SELLER IN ‘ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST’

Morricone would continue his collaboration with director Sergio Leone after The Dollar Trilogy, with the iconic film Once Upon a Time In The West.

Morricone’s score is one of the best-selling soundtracks of all time, with over 10 million copies sold. Leone desired to have the music available for the actors on set, so Morricone did a bulk of the composing before shooting began.

The music relies heavily on the use of leitmotif, a compositional tool where small pieces of melody or rhythm are used to symbolically represent individual characters or themes.

The main theme opens with a bucolic chord progression paired with string bass support. The orchestral density builds on the second iteration of the progression.

On the third, a melody emerges, sung by Italian vocalist Edda Dell'Orso. It is melancholic and pastoral, supported by the cellos and violins.

The mood then shifts and woodwinds enter, swiftly bringing the orchestra to a large crescendo. After the energy subsides, violins take over the vocal melody. Again, we hear Morricone’s well-developed skills as an orchestral arranger.

The melodies are simple and powerful and are well matched by swells of density brought by strings, small amounts of brass and choirs.

ACADEMY AWARD NOMINATION FOR ‘THE MISSION’

Morricone was nominated for an Academy Award for “Best Soundtrack” for his score to Roland Joffe’s 1986 film The Mission.

Morricone did not win, however, and the decision to award the Oscar to Herbie Hancock’s score for Round Midnight remains a controversial decision – primarily because Hancock’s score did not include any original music.

The main theme opens with a slowly building cello and viola motif punctuated by timpani hits. A melody emerges on flute and acoustic guitar, with string pads as support. The melody is calm and gentle, built around a five-note repeating motif.

After a few iterations, the string section takes us into a brief, faster moving development section, more romantic and emotional. The original melody emerges again, performed on the flute and acoustic guitar as before.

A THIRD OSCAR NOMINATION WITH ‘THE UNTOUCHABLES’

Morricone’s score for Brian De Palma’s 1987 crime drama The Untouchables earned the composer his third Academy Award nomination. The film was Morrincone’s third collaboration with director De Palma, and one that Morricone was very fond of.

Morricone remarked in an interview with The Guardian that De Palma respects music and composers, but they disagreed on the music for The Untouchables.

“It was something I didn't want to write – a triumphal piece for the police. I think I wrote nine different pieces for this in total and I said, ‘Please don't choose the seventh!’ because it was the worst. And guess what he chose? The seventh one. But it really suits the movie.”

Morricone’s ending title for The Untouchables is a perfect case study in triumphant film music.

The cue opens as many of Morricone’s cues do: with a slowly building chord progression and a slight melody. The density of the orchestration builds as the melody develops, eventually enveloping itself in a sudden crescendo with a soaring trumpet melody taking centre stage. 

ACADEMY AWARD WIN FOR ‘THE HATEFUL EIGHT’

Morricone finally won the Academy Award for “Best Film Score” in 2016 for his work on Quentin Tarantino’s film The Hateful Eight.

The project was Morricone’s first collaboration with director Tarantino and the first Western-themed movie Morricone had scored in nearly 34 years, however Tarantino had licensed Morricone’s music for previous films.

The film was also the first of Tarantino's to include an original score.

Morricone’s “Overture” is a haunting affair built around an ostinato chord progression performed by the higher register strings.

A darting oboe figure punctuates the beginning section, before the strings again take centre stage. A glockenspiel emerges to cover the melody on the strings, as an upright bass performs a counterline.

The music calls to mind other horror-influenced scores like The Exorcist or Poltergeist.

ENNIO MORRICONE: TRULY A MAESTRO

Morricone’s repertoire of compositions is vast, varied and intriguing. The composer never stopped pushing boundaries, often using concert music as his avenue to explore his more experimental interests. 

His work carries a certain timelessness and has proven to be highly influential for many other famous film composers including Hans Zimmer.

There is so much of Morricone’s music to explore and appreciate. Let’s continue to dig through the composer’s catalog and find new and exciting sounds from him – a man truly worthy of the title il maestro.

Cover Credit: PA Images / Alamy Stock Photo

Writer | Edward Bond

Edward Bond is a multi-instrumentalist composer, performer, and writer currently bouncing between Trondheim and Berlin. He apparently has the eyes of the devil, enjoys leopard prints, and will read your tarot, but not your future.