Oscar winner Ennio Morricone, composer of “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” and “The Mission” and among the most prolific and admired composers in film history, has died. He was 91 years old.
Morricone died early Monday morning at a clinic in Rome, where he was taken shortly after suffering a fall that caused a hip fracture, his lawyer Giorgio Asumma told the Italian news agency ANSA.
Shortly after Morricone’s death was confirmed, Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte tweeted: “We will always remember, with infinite gratitude, the artistic genius of Master #EnnioMorricone. It made us dream, feel excited, reflect, write memorable notes that will remain indelible in the history of music and cinema. ”
The estimated 500 scores of the Italian maestro for films and television, composed over more than 50 years, are believed to be a record in Western cinema for the large amount of music.
At least a dozen of them became film score classics, from the so-called spaghetti westerns of the 1960s, including “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” and “Once Upon a Time in the West” to the widely acclaimed “The Misión” and “Cinema Paradiso” from the eighties.
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He was nominated six times for the Oscars: for “Sky Days”, “The Mission”, “The Untouchables”, “Bugsy”, “Malena” and “The Hateful Eight”, winning the last of these, and in 2006 the La He was awarded an Honorary Oscar by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for “his magnificent and multifaceted contributions to the art of film music.” He was the second composer in the history of the Oscars to receive an honorary award for his work.
He contributed the original score for Quentin Tarantino’s “The Hateful Eight” in 2015 after having made some previous comments about not being happy with the way his music, originally composed for other films, had been used in previous Tarantino films.
Their collaboration on “Hateful Eight”, first announced by Variety in June 2015, it took place quickly, with Morricone working from Tarantino’s script, rather than annotating specific scenes, similar to his technique in “Once Upon a Time in the West”.
Although he preferred to work in Rome, and refused to speak any language other than Italian, he worked with a wide range of filmmakers on both sides of the Atlantic, including Sergio Leone (“Once Upon a Time in America”), Gillo Pontecorvo ( “The Battle of Algiers”), Bernardo Bertolucci (“1900”), Terence Malick (“Days of Heaven”), William Friedkin (“Rampage”), Roman Polanski (“Frenetic”), Brian De Palma (“The Untouchables” “), Barry Levinson (” Disclosure “), Mike Nichols (” Wolf “) and Giuseppe Tornatore (” Cinema Paradiso “).
He was classically trained and insisted on personally orchestrating each note in his scores, unlike many of his contemporaries. The sound he achieved was often unique and innovative, as in western sheet music featuring whistles, bells, electric guitars, wordless soprano voices and full choruses.
Morricone was so busy in the 1960s and 1970s that he often didn’t direct his own music. From 1965 to 1973, he wrote almost 150 scores, more than many composers believe in life. Many went to movies never released in the US, leading to a small but passionate cult of record buyers who didn’t watch the movies but loved the music.
Although he is often remembered for his often tremendously romantic themes (especially for European films of the 1970s such as “Metti, Una sera a cena” and “Maddalena”), he was also featured in crime dramas (“Revolver”) and he enjoyed indulging his passion for dissonance and musical improvisation, especially in the Italian thrillers “giallo” of the 1970s (such as “The Bird with the Crystal Plumage” by Dario Argento).
Morricone had enjoyed a top 10 hit with the song “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly”, but it was “The Mission” that brought him worldwide acclaim in 1986. His alternately primitive and sophisticated music, choral and orchestral for Roland Joffe’s epic game in 18th-century South America won the BAFTA and Golden Globe awards, but lost the Oscar for “Round Midnight,” a jazz score that was not entirely original.
The loss, which outraged Oscar watchers and disappointed Morricone at his best shot at gaining Oscar glory, resulted in the Academy Rules being amended and ultimately the honorary Oscar as a consolation prize for 20 years late.
But overall, Morricone spent more time in years after classical composition, writing more than 50 works for chamber ensembles, symphony orchestra, solo voice, and choral ensembles. Appearing at a concert at the United Nations in early 2007, he conducted his “Voci Dal Silencio”, a cantata in memory of those killed on September 11 and other terrorist attacks.
He launched a film career with “Il Federale” in 1961. Leone’s films of the 1960s, in particular Clint Eastwood’s “The Nameless Man” trilogy beginning with “Fistful of Dollars” in 1964, ensured his future in film, though in later years he would regularly remind interviewers that he had worked in all genres, not just westerns. Director Quentin Tarantino used dark Morricone tracks in several of his films, including “Kill Bill”, “Inglourious Basterds” and “Django Unchained”, and Morricone composed an original song for “Django Unchained”, “Ancora Qui”.
Morricone was born in Rome. He took the trumpet at a young age and studied music at the famous Santa Cecilia Conservatory in Italy with the composer Goffredo Petrassi. Although he initially preferred writing for the concert hall, he began organizing and directing for pop singers in the late 1950s as a means of earning a living. His pop song “Se Telefonando” was one of Italy’s greatest hits of 1966.
Artists from all genres of music have paid tribute to the maestro, including cellist Yo-Yo Ma on a hit 2004 classic album and the 2007 tribute “We All Love Ennio Morricone” featuring Celine Dion, Bruce Springsteen and Metallica. .
His albums are estimated to have sold over 50 million units worldwide.
In addition to his honorary Oscar, he received seven of the Italian David di Donatello Awards, another Golden Globe for “The Legend of 1900”, a Grammy and another BAFTA for “The Untouchables”, the ASCAP Golden Soundtrack Award and the Achievement Award professional of the Film Music Society.
In recent years he had performed concerts of his own music around the world, including a notable American debut at Radio City Music Hall in New York in 2007. Although it was scheduled to perform at the Hollywood Bowl in 2009, the event was canceled and never returned to LA
Morricone is survived by his wife Maria Travia and their four children.
