Born in Rome in 1928, Morricone studied at Rome's Santa Cecilia Conservatory (enrolling at the age of 12), where he specialised in trumpet. After graduating, he found work as a composer and arranger for Italy’s national radio network, wrote music for theatre and television, and occasionally acted as a session musician for film score recordings. In his own words: "Most of these scores were very ugly, and I believed I could do better".
Morricone's first soundtrack credit came in 1961, when he provided the score for Luciano Salce's Il Federale [The Fascist]. He continued to compose for Italian light comedies and costume pictures, and was asked by director Sergio Leone to score his upcoming Western A Fistful Of Dollars (1964). It would be the start of a working relationship that would last three decades, and would become one of the most well-known director/composer pairings in cinema history.
Budget strictures limited Morricone's access to a full orchestra, so he had to get creative. Instead of using full orchestral arrangements, Morricone used gunshots, cracking whips, whistles, voices, the mouth harp, trumpets, and the new Fender electric guitar to create a soundtrack that was unusual but true to the director's vision. He would score the other films in the Dollars Trilogy: For A Few Dollars More (1965), and The Good, The Bad And The Ugly (1966).
The score for The Good, The Bad And The Ugly is considered to be one of the most influential film soundtracks of all time; it has sold sold over three million copies worldwide, and the main theme- which resembles the howling of a coyote- received a Grammy nomination for Best Instrumental Theme in 1969 (the Dollars films were released in America around three years after their Italian releases). In 2009, the soundtrack was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. Other pieces from the soundtrack which have taken on a life of their own are "The Story Of A Soldier", and "The Ecstasy Of Gold" (which has been used as the intro music at Metallica concerts, and the outro music at the Ramones').
In total, Morricone scored six movies in total for Leone: the three Dollars movies, as well as Once Upon A Time In The West (1968), A Fistful Of Dynamite (1971) and Once Upon A Time In America (1984). In a career that boasts over five hundred scores, it's a relatively small part of his output but a part for which Morricone was always recognised; indeed, he was known in interviews (conducted in Italian, as he was not fluent in English) to sharply remind his interviewers about how small a part of his output this actually is, and also how relatively small his work on Westerns were.
Morricone always said "I'm not linked to one genre or another" and, throughout the 1960s and 1970s, provided scores for diverse films, such as Gillo Pontecorvo's war drama The Battle Of Algiers (1966), Elio Petri's crime drama Investigation Of A Citizen Above Suspicion (1970) and Dario Argento's horror thriller The Bird With The Crystal Plumage (1970). He also provided the score for Don Siegel's war adventure Two Mules For Sister Sara (1970), Pier Paolo Pasolini's romantic comedy-drama The Decameron (1971), John Boorman's horror sequel Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977) and Édouard Molinaro's comedy La Cage Aux Folles (1978). He also composed the official theme for the 1978 FIFA World Cup.
In 1979, Morricone received the first of his six Oscar nominations for his score for Terrence Malick's romantic drama Days Of Heaven (1978). Although he lost the Oscar to fellow Italian Giorgio Moroder (for Midnight Express), he did win the Anthony Asquith Award for Film Music at the BAFTAs. Morricone's music for the controversial crime drama Butterfly (1982) - starring Pia Zadora, Stacy Keach, and Orson Welles- received two very conflicting award nominations; he was nominated for two Golden Raspberry Awards, one for Worst Musical Score, and one for Worst Original Song for "It's Wrong For Me To Love You" (shared with lyricist Carol Connors, although he lost both to a song and the score from The Pirate Movie); proving that all art is subjective, the song was also nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Original Song! (It didn't win that either; it went to Christopher Cross for "Arthur's Theme")
Throughout the 1980s, Morricone's scores include John Carpenter's sci-fi horror The Thing (1982, which was also nominated for a Razzie for Worst Score), Richard Fleischer's fantasy action-adventure Red Sonja (1985), Roman Polanski's mystery Frantic (1988), Brian De Palma's war drama Casualties Of War (1989, which was nominated for the Golden Globe for Best Original Score), and Pedro Almodóvar's romantic comedy-drama Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! (also 1989)
Morricone's beautiful and moving score for Roland Joffé's historical drama The Mission (1986) is amongst his best, and is known for its main theme,"Gabriel's Oboe" (representing Jesuit missionary Father Gabriel's attempt to use his oboe to beguile the indigenous tribes of South America and convert them to Christianity). It won the BAFTA and Golden Globe for Best Score, and was nominated for but didn't win the Oscar. In 2001, Morricone said "I definitely felt that I should have won for The Mission. Especially when you consider that the Oscar-winner that year was 'Round Midnight, which was not an original score. It had a very good arrangement by Herbie Hancock, but it used existing pieces."
The following year, Morricone scored The Untouchables for Brian De Palma. His score won the Grammy for Best Album of Original Instrumental Background Score and the BAFTA for Best Score, as well as getting Golden Globe and Oscar nominations. Morricone also won the BAFTA for the score for Giuseppe Tornatore's poignant drama Cinema Paradiso (1988), which he scored with his son Andrea and with whom he shared the award.
Throughout the 1990s, Morricone's scores included Franco Zeffirelli's Hamlet (1990); Barry Levinson's biographical crime drama Bugsy (1991, which was nominated for the Golden Globe and the Oscar); Wolfgang Petersen's action thriller In The Line Of Fire (1993); Mike Nichols' horror romance Wolf (1994, which was nominated for a Grammy and a Fangoria Chainsaw Award); Barry Levinson's thriller Disclosure (1994); Giuseppe Tornatore's romantic drama The Star Maker (1995, nominated for a Grammy); Dario Argento's horror The Stendhal Syndrome (1996, Morricone's second Fangoria Chainsaw Award nomination); Adrian Lyne's adaptation of Lolita (1997); Warren Beatty's comedy drama Bulworth (1998, nominated for a Grammy); Giuseppe Tornatore's romantic drama The Legend Of 1900 (1998, which won the Golden Globe), and Dario Argento's horror version of The Phantom Of The Opera (1998).
In the early 2000s, Morricone scored Giuseppe Tornatore's romantic comedy-drama Malèna (2000, nominated for a Golden Globe and an Oscar), Brian De Palma's sci-fi thriller Mission To Mars (2000), and Liliana Cavani's crime drama Ripley's Game (2002). In 2001, he conducted two symphonic concerts dedicated to his film scores at the Barbican Centre. This was the first time he performed in London. Two years later, for his 75th birthday, he conducted a concert of film music at London's Royal Albert Hall playing music from a selection of his compelling scores. In 2007, Morricone was awarded an Honorary Oscar "for his magnificent and multifaceted contributions to the art of film music". He was given the Award by Clint Eastwood, who translated Morricone's acceptance speech into English.
Morricone's association with Quentin Tarantino began back in 2003, when the director used "Death Rides A Horse" in Kill Bill: Volume 1 and used several musical themes from the Dollars trilogy in Kill Bill: Volume 2 (2004). Further excepts were used in Death Proof (2007) and Inglourious Basterds (2009); at one point, Morricone was due to score the latter, but didn't feel he could work effectively with the timescale he was given. For Django Unchained (2012), he composed a new song- "Ancora Qui"- and had several existing pieces used in the score. After working on this film, Morricone said he would probably never again collaborate with Quentin Tarantino, since he didn't like the way he "places music in his films without coherence" and "never giving enough time".
However, three years later, Morricone provided the score for Tarantino's The Hateful Eight. Opening the film is "L'Ultima Diligenza Di Red Rock", a sweeping, menacing seven-minute suite of brass and strings. He was nominated for two Grammys- one for Best Instrumental Composition, and Best Soundtrack- and won both the BAFTA and Golden Globe. He received his sixth Oscar nomination- and won. At 87, Morricone became the oldest winner of a competitive Academy (and was until James Ivory won for his screenplay for Call Me By Your Name two years later).
Morricone is one of those rare film composers who non-film fans are aware of (in the same vein as, say, John Williams or Danny Elfman). His prolific and eclectic compositions have become indelibly linked to some of the most iconic film images, and the music and film worlds are lesser for his passing.
Grazie, Maestro.
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