ENNIO MORRICONE

Italian composer Ennio Morricone has just celebrated his 77th birthday. He is to many people the greatest composer alive today and in my opinion the most influential since the mid 60’s and with approximately 400 original soundtracks to his name is also the most prolific. He has previously been described as the Mozart of film music, yet the maestro himself appears to prefer experimental avant-garde music, jazz, natural sounds and Bach.







Ennio Morricone shot to fame during the 1960’s with his music for Sergio Leone’s spaghetti westerns ("The Good, The Bad & The Ugly" and "Once Upon A Time In The West" being the most memorable) and Gillo Pontecorvo’s highly acclaimed "The Battle of Algiers" (1966). He has since gone onto provide the soundtracks to films by many great film makers (Pier Paolo Pasolini, Roland Joffe, Sergio Corbucci, Bernardo Bertolucci, William Friedkin, Brian de Palma, Guiseppe Tornatore, Franco Zeffirelli, John Boorman and Quentin Tarantino to name just a few) although it was actually during the late 60’s and 70’s that he really excelled by making his mark with totally original musical scores for mainly Italian language productions of which a lot have now since been re-released on CD for the first time. And last year some of his music from this period was even used in Tarantino’s "Kill Bill 2".











Ennio Morricone is already a legend … but as bizarre as it may sound, the maestro has still never won an Oscar!
As far as I can tell he has been nominated on four occasions for the academy award (Oscar) for best original soundtrack – The Mission (1986), The Untouchables (1987), Bugsy (1991) and Malena (2001), although it should have been five had it not been for a monumental blunder by the film company responsible for Once Upon A Time In America (1985) who simply ‘forgot’ to officially submit it for nomination when everyone had already assumed it would walk away with the prize!
The last time that Ennio Morricone was nominated for an Oscar was back in 2001 for the soundtrack for Malena - it was also the 4th music score he had done for Italian director Guiseppe Tornatore after having previously provided the soundtracks to Cinema Paradiso (1989), Stanno Tutti Bene (1990) and The Legend of 1900(1998).





Every Morricone fan will have their favourite soundtracks, and I’m no exception. So should you want to check him out then below is a list of my current favourites…






Top 25 Morricone soundtracks:

1 – ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST - 1969
2 – THE UNTOUCHABLES - 1987
3 – ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA - 1984
4 – THE MISSION - 1986
5 – THE GOOD, THE BAD & THE UGLY - 1967
6 – CASUALTIES OF WAR - 1990
7 – NOSTROMO (RAI/BBC TV film) - 1996
8 – MY NAME IS NOBODY - 1973
9 – THE SICILAN CLAN (IL CLAN DEI SICILIANI) - 1970
10 – GIU LA TESTA (FISTFUL OF DYNAMITE) - 1971
11 – 1900 (NOVECENTO) - 1976
12 – IL MERCENARIO (A Professional Gun) – 1968
13 – MADDALENA - 1971
14 – LE PROFESSIONNEL - 1981
15 – SACCO AND VANZETTI - 1971
16 – A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS/FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE – 1966/7
17 – THE LEGEND OF 1900 - 1998
18 – STATE OF GRACE - 1990
19 – CINEMA PARADISO - 1989
20 – DEATH RIDES A HORSE - 1968
21 – MALENA - 2000
22 – VATEL – 2000
23 – CITY OF JOY - 1992
24 – THE GENIUS - 1976
25 – IL SERPENTE (The Serpent) - 1973






Top 10 Morricone compilation albums::

1 – FILM MUSIC 1966 to 1987 - ENNIO MORRICONE (Virgin) - 1987
2 – MUSIC FOR ORCHESTRA AND VOICE - ENNIO MORRICONE (WEA) - 1977
3 – MORE MONDO MORRICONE: Italian cult movies 60’s & 70’s (Colosseum) – 1996
4 – ENNIO MORRICONE: Main Titles 1965 to 1995 Volume 1 - (Cinevox) - 1996
5 – Musique de Film - ENNIO MORRICONE (Universal/Milan) - 2002
6 – MONDO MORRICONE: Italian cult movies 1968 to 1972 (Colosseum) – 1996
7 – I GRANDI WESTERNS ITALIANI - ENNIO MORRICONE (RCA) - 1974
8 – IL ETAIT UNE FOIS … LA REVOLUTION - ENNIO MORRICONE (Barclay) - 1976
9 – MOLTO MONDO MORRICONE: Italian cult movies Volume 3 (CineSoundZ) – 2002
10 – ENNIO MORRICONE: Ultimate Soundtracks collection - (BMG Japan) - 2001






© TerryA – November 2005