Ennio Morricone (1928-2020)

[NatBalance]

Excellent, one of my favourite composers since my teens in the 70s. I emailed CotW when Morricone was 90 suggesting it would be a good time to make him the subject. I don't think he could speak English so it would have been difficult to interview him. I don't know anything much about his music other than his film music so I'm looking forward to hearing his non film music, some of which I think is quite avant-garde. He wrote a wonderfull score for a TV series called Moses staring Burt Lancaster. I hope to hear some of that and lots of other great film music that is rarely played but is just as good as the famous pieces.

Rich

[kernelbogey]

A blurb for the week here, not short on adjectives.

[Serial_Apologist]

Thanks to both of you for getting in first and saving me the time! Yes, while eager to hear some of the music EM composed for the concert hall, I'm one of those who happens to think that some film music deservies hearing in its own right as long as it avoids being cliché-ridden and can stand listening to independently of the film

[Serial_Apologist]

Is anyone else trying to make the effort with Morricone, and finding him extremely hard going?

[french frank]

Is anyone else trying to make the effort with Morricone, and finding him extremely hard going?

The music or the information about him?

[Serial_Apologist]

The music or the information about him?

Mostly the music, I guess. I can think of a few other modern composers who divided their work between commercial and non-commercial - Richard Rodney Bennett and Malcolm Arnold coming immediately to mind. I don't find Morricone's music to be particularly good in either sphere, frankly. The more avant-garde stuff sounds weak placed beside that of his teacher Petrassi, and also the Italian contemporaries alongside whom, at Darmstadt, he learned about serialism and Cageian experimentalism, applying the former very mechanistically, evidently without feeling, and the latter in a cheapening pick-and-mix kind of way, like someone adumbrating a new religious doctrine out of bits and pieces divorced from this, that, and any other tradition. The last excerpt on today's programme, which seemed to be essaying a slow Mahler movement pastiche, is the first time I have ever heard a string orchestra made to sound like a synthesiser!

[NatBalance]

Haven't had a chance to listen to them yet. Recording them, heard little bits. I'm not well aversed in avant-garde music so I won't have much to compare it with. I suppose it's difficult to merit in all fields. I'll try to listen to one tonight.

[Sospiri]

Excellent Composer of Week on Morricone. Most of the music stands alone from the film.And he composed orchestral and piano music aside from movies.

[Nick Armstrong]

Mostly the music, I guess. I can think of a few other modern composers who divided their work between commercial and non-commercial - Richard Rodney Bennett and Malcolm Arnold coming immediately to mind. I don't find Morricone's music to be particularly good in either sphere, frankly.

Agreed about his non-film output

I’m not qualified to judge on its technical prowess, but it seemed to me to lack anything engaging or memorable.

The comparison that suggested itself to me was Leonard Bernstein as a composer: I’ve always felt the same about his symphonies for instance, whereas in their different genres both Bernstein and Morricone achieved utmost memorability and individual character in their ‘showbiz’ (i.e. ‘commercial’) work

[Ein Heldenleben]

I think his music is quite interesting texturally - the use of unusual instruments and voices . There was a piece at the end of today’s programme which constantly inserted a minor key fragment into a standard major harmonic progression which I thought quite catchy harmonically.

[pastoralguy]

His score to ‘Cinema Paradiso’, one of my very favourite movies used to accompany me on my Sony Walkman when I lived in Perthshire. Very evocative music.

[Nick Armstrong]

His score to ‘Cinema Paradiso’, one of my very favourite movies … Very evocative music.

[LMcD]

His score to ‘Cinema Paradiso’, one of my very favourite movies used to accompany me on my Sony Walkman when I lived in Perthshire. Very evocative music.

Right up there with 'Jean de Florette'/'Manon des Sources', two films that spring to mind immediately whenever I hear the overture from 'The Force of Destiny'.

Today's CotW has started with the theme from 'Cinema Paradiso' followed by 'Gabriel's Oboe'. What's not to like?