Ennio Morricone: Film Composer and Sonic Explorer

Published in The Daily Review, July 10, 2020

Italian composer and musician Ennio Morricone died at the age of 91 on Monday July 6, 2020. For more than 80 years of his life ‘Maestro’ Morricone scored music, for over 500 films and TV shows, and some 100 concert works. He was a versatile songwriter, arranger, conductor, musician and improviser.

There are few film music composers with the impact of Ennio Morricone. Most people would recognise the signature whistling, strange vocalising and galloping rhythms he made characteristic of the many ‘spaghetti westerns’ he composed music for, even if they haven’t seen the films. This is all the more extraordinary because Morricone film signatures are not like the others – they are built on experimentalism and improvisation. The sparse ocarina/voice/brass call and response that open Sergio Leone’s film The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) are hardly comparable with the orchestral bombast of a John Williams or Hans Zimmer score.

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