Ennio Morricone

Ennio Morricone

Ennio Morricone, OMRI (born November 10, 1928), is an Italian Academy Award–winning composer. He has composed and arranged scores for more than 500 film and television productions. Morricone is considered one of the most influential film composers since the 1960s. He wrote the characteristic soundtracks of Sergio Leone's Spaghetti Westerns A Fistful of Dollars (1964), For a Few Dollars More (1965), The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966), Once Upon a Time in the West (1968), The Great Silence (1968), and My Name Is Nobody (1973). His more recent compositions include the scores for The Thing (1982), Once Upon a Time in America (1984), The Mission (1986), The Untouchables (1987), Cinema Paradiso (1988), The Legend of 1900 (1998), Malèna (2000), Mission to Mars (2000), Fateless (2005), and Baaria - La porta del vento (2009). Ennio Morricone has won five Anthony Asquith Awards for Film Music by BAFTA in 1979–1992. He has been nominated for five Academy Awards for Best Music, Original Score in 1979–2001, and won none of them. Morricone received the Honorary Academy Award in 2007 "for his magnificent and multifaceted contributions to the art of film music". He was the second composer to receive this award after its introduction.

Biography

Classical music

Morricone was born in Rome, the son of Libera and Mario Morricone, a jazz trumpeter. He was educated at the National Academy of Santa Cecilia in the trumpet, composition, choral music, and choral direction under Goffredo Petrassi, who deeply influenced him and to whom Morricone has dedicated concert pieces. Compelled by his father to take up the trumpet, he had first gone to 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). 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. Many years were spent in study, giving him the extraordinary level of technical ability that his music exhibits. His wartime experiences influenced many of his scores for films set in that period.

After he graduated, he continued to work in classical composition and arrangement. Initially influenced by John Cage—particularly, the American's use of silence—he wrote more in the climate of the Italian avant-garde. Few of these compositions have been made available on CD, and some have yet to be premiered.

Early pop arrangements

Template:Sound sample box align right Template:Sample box end 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, working with Renato Rascel, Rita Pavone, and Mario Lanza. A particular success was one of his own songs, "Se telefonando". Performed by Mina, it was the standout track of Studio Uno 66, the fifth-biggest-selling album of the year 1966 in Italy. Morricone's sophisticated arrangement of "Se telefonando" was a combination of melodic trumpet lines, Hal Blaine–style drumming, a string set, a '60s Europop female choir, and intensive subsonic-sounding trombones. The Italian Hitparade #7 song had eight transitions of tonality building tension throughout the chorus. During the following decades, the song was covered by several performers in Italy and abroad—most notably by Francoise Hardy and Iva Zanicchi (1966), Delta V (2005), Vanessa and the O's (2007), and Neil Hannon (2008). In the '60s, Morricone composed also songs for other artists like Milva, Gianni Morandi, Paul Anka, Amii Stewart, and Mireille Mathieu.

Leone film scores

Well-versed in a variety of musical idioms from his RCA experience, Morricone began composing film scores in the early '60s. 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, Sicilian Jew's 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. Template:Sound sample box align left

Template:Sample box endAs 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 and later films from A Fistful of Dollars (1964) to Once Upon a Time in America (1984)—including For a Few Dollars More (1965), The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966), and Once Upon a Time in the West (1968), and later ones 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 examplary collaborations between a director and a composer.

In addition, Morricone composed music for many other, not so popular Spaghetti Westerns, including Duello nel Texas (1963), Le pistole non discutono (1964), A Pistol for Ringo (1965), The Return of Ringo (1965), Navajo Joe (1966), The Big Gundown, (1966), Face to Face (1967), Death Rides a Horse (1967), The Hellbenders (1967), A Bullet for the General (1967), The Mercenary (1968), Tepepa (1968), The Great Silence (1968), Guns for San Sebastian (1968), …And for a Roof a Sky Full of Stars (1968), The Five Man Army (1969), Queimada! (1969), Vamos a matar, compañeros (1970), Two Mules for Sister Sara (1970), Sonny and Jed (1972), and Buddy Goes West (1981).

Morricone is also notable for scoring the soundtrack for John Carpenter's The Thing, one of very few Carpenter films whose music was not created by Carpenter himself.

The team

With the score of A Fistful of Dollars (1964), Morricone started his 10-year collaboration with his childhood friend Alessandro Alessandroni and his Cantori Moderni. Alessandroni provided the whistling and the twanging guitar on the soundtracks, while his Cantori Moderni were a flexible troupe of modern singers. Morricone specifically exploited the solo soprano of the group, Edda Dell'Orso, at the height of her powers—"an extraordinary voice at my disposal".

Other film scores

Template:Sample box end Most of Ennio Morricone's film scores of the '60s were composed outside the Spaghetti Western genre, while still using Alessandro Alessandroni's team. Their music included the themes for Il Malamondo (1964), Slalom (1965), The Battle of Algiers (1965), and Listen, Let's Make Love (1967). In 1968, Morricone reduced his work outside the movie business and wrote scores for 20 films in the same year. The scores included psychedelic accompaniment for Mario Bava's superhero romp Danger: Diabolik (1968). The next year marked the start of a series of evocative scores for Dario Argento's stylized thrillers, including The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1969), The Cat o' Nine Tails (1971), and Four Flies on Grey Velvet (1974). In 1970, Morricone wrote the score for Violent City. That same year, he received his first Nastro d'Argento for the music in Metti una sera a cena (Giuseppe Patroni Griffi, 1969) and his second only a year later for Sacco e Vanzetti (Giuliano Montaldo, 1971), in which he had made a memorable collaboration with the legendary American folk singer and activist Joan Baez. In 1973, he scored a theme for the crime film Revolver (1973). He received his first nomination for an Academy Award in 1979 for the score to Days of Heaven (Terrence Malick, 1978) and another in 1986 for The Mission (Roland Joffé, 1986), in 1987 for The Untouchables (Brian De Palma, 1987), in 1991 for Bugsy (Barry Levinson, 1991), and in 2001 for Malèna (Giuseppe Tornatore, 2000). Morricone composed the score for John Carpenter's science-fiction/horror movie The Thing (1982).

Morricone has worked for television—from a single title piece to variety shows and documentaries to TV series, including Moses (1974) and Marco Polo (1982). He wrote the score for the Mafia television series La piovra seasons 2 to 10 from 1985 to 2001, including the themes "Droga e sangue" ("Drugs and Blood"), "La morale", and "L'immorale". Morricone worked as the conductor of seasons 3 to 5 of the series. He also worked as the music supervisor for the television project La bibbia ("The Bible"). In the late 1990s, he collaborated with his son, Andrea, on the Ultimo crime dramas. Their collaboration yielded the BAFTA-winning Nuovo cinema Paradiso. In 2003, Ennio Morricone scored another epic—this one, for Japanese television—which was called Musashi and was the Taiga drama about Miyamoto Musashi, Japan's legendary warrior. A part of his "applied music" is now applied to Italian television films.

Tours

Since 2001, Ennio 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 2007-01-29 at Auditorio Nacional in Mexico City and four days later 2007-02-03 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.

Maestro Morricone and Roma Sinfonietta also held a concert at the Belgrade Arena (Belgrade, Serbia) on February 14, 2009.

On October 25, 2009, Ennio Morricone will conduct the Hollywood Bowl Symphony Orchestra and Los Angeles Chorale at Los Angeles Hollywood Bowl for a concert based on his soundtrack music.

Academy Award

Morricone received an honorary Academy Award on 2007-02-25 from Clint Eastwood "for his magnificent and multifaceted contributions to the art of film music." With the statuette went 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

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 and for Brian De Palma's Capone Rising, which is a sequel to the 1987 crime drama The Untouchables.

Prizes and awards

• 1967 — Diapason d'Or
• 1969 — Premio Spoleto Cinema
• 1970 — Nastro d'argento for Metti una sera a cena
• 1971 — Nastro d'argento for Sacco e Vanzetti
• 1972 — Cork Film International for La califfa
• 1979 — Oscar Nomination for Days of Heaven
• 1979 — Premio Vittorio de Sica
• 1981 — Premio della critica discografica for Il prato
• 1984 — Premio Zurlini
• 1985 — Nastro d'argento and BAFTA for Once Upon A Time In America
• 1986 — Oscar Nomination, BAFTA and Golden Globe Award for The Mission
• 1986 — Premio Vittorio de Sica
• 1988 — Nastro d'argento, BAFTA, Grammy Award and Oscar Nomination for The Untouchables
• 1988 — David di Donatello for Gli occhiali d'oro
• 1989 — David di Donatello for Nuovo Cinema Paradiso
• 1989 — Ninth Annual Ace Winner for Il giorno prima
• 1989 — Pardo d'Oro alla carriera (Locarno Film Festival)
• 1990 — BAFTA, Prix Fondation Sacem del XLIII Cannes Film Festival and David di Donatello for Nuovo Cinema Paradiso
• 1991 — David di Donatello for Stanno tutti bene
• 1992 — Oscar Nomination for Bugsy
• 1992 — Pentagramma d'oro
• 1992 — Premio Michelangelo
• 1992 — Grolla d'oro alla carriera (Saint Vincent)
• 1993 — David di Donatello and Efebo d'Argento for Jonas che visse nella balena
• 1993 — Globo d'oro Stampa estera in Italia
• 1993 — Gran Premio SACEM audiovisivi
• 1994 — ASCAP Golden Soundtrack award (Los Angeles)
• 1995 — Premio Rota
• 1995 — Leone d'Oro Honorary award (Venice Film Festival)
• 1996 — Premio Cappelli
• 1996 — Premio Accademia di Santa Cecilia
• 1997 — Premio Flaiano
• 1998 — Columbus Prize
• 1999 — Erich Wolfgang Korngold Internationaler Preis für Film
• 1999 — Exsquibbidles Film Academy lifetime achievement award
• 2000 — Golden Globe Award for The Legend of 1900 (1998)
• 2000 — David di Donatello for Canone inverso
• 2000 — Oscar nomination for Malèna
• 2003 — Golden Eagle Award for 72 Meters
• 2003 — Honorary Senator of the Filmscoring Class of the Hochschule für Musik und Theater München
• 2006 — Grand Officer award from President of the Italian Republic Carlo Azeglio Ciampi
• 2007 — Honorary Academy Award for career achievement
• 2007 — The Film & TV Music Award for Lifetime Achievement
• 2008 — Knight in the Order of the Legion of Honor
• 2009 — Medal of Merits for Macedonia

Discography

Ennio Morricone has sold over 40 million records worldwide, including 6,5 million copies in France and more than two million albums in Korea.

Main article: Ennio Morricone discography

Top worldwide film grosses

Ennio Morricone has been involved with eight movies grossing over $25 million at the box office:

Year	Title	Director	Gross
1966	The Good, The Bad & The Ugly	Sergio Leone	$25,100,000
1977	Exorcist II: The Heretic	John Boorman	$30,749,142
1987	The Untouchables	Brian De Palma	$76,270,454
1991	Bugsy	Barry Levinson	$49,114,016
1993	In the Line of Fire	Wolfgang Petersen	$176,997,168
1994	Wolf	Mike Nichols	$131,002,597
1994	Disclosure	Barry Levinson	$214,015,089
2000	Mission to Mars	Brian De Palma	$110,983,407

Tributes

Morricone's film music was also recorded by other artists. Hugo Montenegro had a hit with a version of the main theme from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly in both the United Kingdom and the United States. This was followed by his album of Morricone's music in 1968. John Zorn recorded an album of Morricone's music, The Big Gundown, in the mid-1980s. Lyricists and poets have helped convert some of his melodies into a songbook. Morricone collaborated with world music artists, like Portuguese fado singer Dulce Pontes (in 2003 with Focus, an album praised by Paulo Coelho and where his songbook can be sampled) and virtuoso cellist Yo-Yo Ma (in 2004), who both recorded albums of Morricone classics with the Roma Sinfonietta Orchestra and Morricone himself conducting. Metallica uses Morricone's The Ecstasy of Gold as an intro at their concerts (shock jocks Opie and Anthony also use the song at the start of their XM Satellite Radio and CBS Radio shows.) The San Francisco Symphony Orchestra also played it on Metallica's Symphonic rock album S&M. Ramones used the theme from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly as a concert intro. The theme from A Fistful Of Dollars is also used as a concert intro by The Mars Volta. His influence extends from Michael Nyman to Muse. He even has his own tribute band, a large group which started in Australia, touring as "The Ennio Morricone Experience". In 2006 Morricone made a guest appearance on the Morrissey album Ringleader of the Tormentors, scoring the string part for "Dear God, Please Help Me", recorded in Rome's Forum Music Village Studios, Morricone's regular recording and mixing venue, previously known as the Orthophonic Recording Studio, which is located beneath a church. In 2007, the tribute album We All Love Ennio Morricone was released. It features performances by various artists, including Sarah Brightman, Andrea Bocelli, Celine Dion, Bruce Springsteen and Metallica.

• The 2007 Quentin Tarantino film Kill Bill Volumes 1 & 2 makes extensive use of several Morricone pieces from several 1960s film scores. The 2009 film Inglourious Basterds also uses many Morricone pieces, as well as sharing "Il Mercenario (Ripresa)" with Kill Bill..

• Ciarán Farrell was one of Ennio Morricone's students.

• In 1990 the American singer Amii Stewart, best known for the 1979 disco hit "Knock On Wood", recorded a tribute album entitled Pearls - Amii Stewart Sings Ennio Morricone for the RCA label, including a selection of the composer's best known songs. Since the mid 1980s Stewart resides in Italy, the Pearls album features Rome's Philharmonic Orchestra and was co-produced by Morricone himself.

• The asteroid 152188 Morricone was named in Morricone's honour on 2007-06-01.

• NBC Sports borrowed Morricone's theme from The Untouchables for use during the closing credits of their coverage of the 2000 American League Championship Series. This was accompanied by a video montage commemorating the network's final Major League Baseball telecast.

• Mr. Bungle have covered several Morricone songs live including Muscoli Di Velluto from Malamondo and Main themes from Citta Violenta, Una Lucertola Con La Pelle di Donna and Metti, Una Sera a Cena.

• Fantômas did a cover of the main theme to Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion (Indagine su un cittadino al di sopra di ogni sospetto) on their album The Director's Cut — an album of film soundtrack covers.

• Chico Buarque recorded an album with Morricone in 1970 called Per Un Pugno di Samba when the former was exiled from Brazil.

• Wall of Voodoo, of "Mexican Radio" fame, would perform medleys of famous pieces by Morricone at early live shows, as heard on their EP/Live Album The Index Masters

• Jackass Number Two uses his song "Ecstasy of Gold" at the beginning of the movie.

• Rapper Immortal Technique samples "Ecstasy of Gold" in his song "Land of the Gun"

• Italian thrash metal band Schizo recorded a cover of Morricone's "The Sicilian Clan" original soundtrack song for their 2007 album "Cicatriz Black".

• The Vandals, in their 1984 Album "Peace thru Vandalism," play their own version of the famous theme from The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly in the introduction to the "Urban Struggle" track.

• Hans Zimmer's Parlay in The Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End Soundtrack is a tribute to Ennio Morricone's Man with a Harmonica.

• Graeme Revell's scores was thought to have been inspired by Ennio Morricone's cult film and speghetti western scores.

• British band Muse cites Morricone as an influence for the songs City of Delusion, Hoodoo, and Knights of Cydonia on their album, Black Holes and Revelations.. The band has recently started playing the song "Man With A Harmonica" live played by Chris Wolstenholme, as an intro to Knights of Cydonia.

• The 5th track off of Murder by Death's latest release, Red of Tooth and Claw, is titled Theme (for Ennio Morricone).

• The ambient electronic act The Orb sampled Morricone's "The Man With The Harmonica" (from the film Once Upon a Time in the West) in the opening to their 1990 single "Little Fluffy Clouds".

• The final installment of the massively popular video game series, Metal Gear Solid, uses in its soundtrack Morricone's song "Here's to You", taken from the film Sacco e Vanzetti.

• Inti-Illimani, in their 2004 Italian Concert and Album "Viva Italia", play their tribute of the Love Theme from "Cinema Paradiso"

• The generic of Italiques 70's show produced by Marc Gilbert on french television used the soundtrack of Dio è con noi of Ennio Morricone, with a motion picture of Jean-Michel Folon that stayed the generic of the public channel for twenty years.

• On the 16th of August 2008 at the V Festival, Christopher Wolstenholme of Muse Played Ennio's "Man with the Harmonica" on harmonica before the band ended their Chelmsford set with Knights of Cydonia (A song with Morricone's classical influence).

• A remix of Ecstasy of Gold is used in Nike's "Leave Nothing" commercial with Ladainian Tomlinson and Troy Polamalu.

• Jay-Z rapped over "Ecstasy of Gold" in the track "Blueprint2" off of "The Blueprint 2: The Gift & the Curse".

• Chi Mai is used in song Heartless by Black Attack from 1998.

• Independent pro wrestler Eddie Kingston uses The Ecstasy of Gold as his entrance music.

• The UK electronic band The Prodigy sampled The Big Gundown into their version of the song. Which can be found on the Lost Beats EP included with the 2009 album Invaders Must Die.

Personal life

In 1956, Ennio Morricone married Maria Travia, who has written lyrics to complement her husband's pieces. Her works include the Latin texts for The Mission. They have three sons and a daughter, in order of birth: Marco, Alessandra, Andrea [Andrew], and Giovanni.

Sources

• Horace, B. Music from the Movies, film music journal double issue 45/46, 2005: ISSN 0967-8131
• Miceli, Sergio. Morricone, la musica, il cinema. Mucchi/Ricordi, 1994: ISBN 88-7592-398-1
• Poppi, R., M. Pecorari. Dizionario del cinema italiano. I film vol. 3. Dal 1960 al 1969. Gremese, 1993: ISBN 88-7605-593-2
• Poppi, R., M. Pecorari. Dizionario del cinema italiano. I film vol. 4. Dal 1970 al 1979* A/L. Gremese, 1996: ISBN 88-7605-935-0
• Poppi, R., M. Pecorari. Dizionario del cinema italiano. I film vol. 4. Dal 1970 al 1979** M/Z. Gremese, 1996: ISBN 88-7605-969-5
• Poppi, R., M. Pecorari. Dizionario del cinema italiano. I film vol. 5. Dal 1980 al 1989* A/L. Gremese, 2000: ISBN 88-7742-423-0
• Poppi, R., M. Pecorari. Dizionario del cinema italiano. I film vol. 5. Dal 1980 al 1989** M/Z. Gremese, 2000: ISBN 88-7742-429-X

External links

• Official website
• Ennio Morricone at Soundtrackguide.net
• Ennio Morricone (Unofficial) Fans Club
• The Ennio Morricone Fanpage
• Ennio Morricone myspace
• The Ennio Morricone Online Community
• Ennio Morricone Japanese website
• Morricone Made in France : everything about the 20 french movies scored by the Maestro (fr)
• Ennio Morricone at IMDb
• Ennio Morricone Discography at SoundtrackCollector.com
• http://www.furious.com/perfect/morricone2.html
• Streaming audio of Morricone's "The Man with the Harmonica," from his soundtrack to Once upon a Time in the West