Addio, Maestro

You might have heard it, Ennio Morricone passed away at the age of 91 today.
Quite a number of you really love his music, if not everyone. There are hundreds of beautiful tunes he gifted to the world, while the Western themes might be the most popular. Mostly, it was perfect music for perfect movies.

He is in my ear a lot, just yesterday I was listening to his tunes. He is in my head as I write this. There are so many songs, it's hard to even choose a top 20.

Here is a beautiful collection of his "greatest hits", just scratching the surface.


This might not be a music forum, but his music has inspired me since I watched Westerns with dad as a kid.
His music also was and will be a source of great inspiration when creating 1/6 characters and stories in my head.

With my Cargo states, the story I want to tell is a post apocalyptic soviet medieval royal fantasy western drama set in the former netherlands, so I found his music very fitting.
Yurg, for example, has quite a number of tunes in his head he can bring to life hundreds of years after the fall of civilization. In my Cargo Trio thread, I found a Morricone Theme for every one of the triell...three. Yurg got the "Nobody" theme, Chyvlanska "The Wilde horde" and Vylmalita "Two mules for Sister Sara", so in my head, they all are connected to Morricone in a way.


And then there are the rainbow people. Morricone's anarchic sounding Il Giardino Delle Delizie" is part of their soundtrack, as the (heavily modified) picture by Hieronymous Bosch is quite an important item in their society.
Btw, they live in an area not that far from where the "Ecstasy of Gold" cemetry is. Generally, they live in an area that was used a lot to depict American landscapes for Italian Westerns.
They only know Morricone (In their language: "Nhiffihyhu", which can be roughly translated into "master") as some kind of etheral being that created the whistling sounds, so people could talk.







Hyufihts favourite might be For a few dollars more, it is good to whistle.





Of course, my Mediterrans also keep his music alive with their shell mandolins and other shell based instruments. He was one of their ancestors, after all. Maybe I will get a tribute from them too.

Maybe someone wants to join in and share favourite tunes or even fitting pictures.

So sad. He was indeed a genius. That's a great tribute you've put together, Ovy. I have more of his soundtracks than I can count off the top of my head. Everything from his classic Spaghetti Westerns to The Mission. What many may not remember is he also did the music to John Carpenter's The Thing. Almost everyone doing Westerns movies today often rips off his style (and even when not doing a Western -- like Pirates of the Caribbean 3 actually had a moment where the music was inspired by E.M.) -- a good example is Marco Beltrami's score for the remake of '3:10 to Yuma.'

i can remember a time in 1967 or 68...I was just a kid, but "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly" had just been released in North America and the theme musing from that film was a big hit and was being played on the radio all the time. The film itself is, and will always be, IMHO the greatest of ALL spaghetti westerns, not just the ones directed by Sergio Leone, and Morricone's musical scores for those films will always stand out.

ThePhotogsBlog wrote:i can remember a time in 1967 or 68...I was just a kid, but "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly" had just been released in North America and the theme musing from that film was a big hit and was being played on the radio all the time.  The film itself is, and will always be, IMHO the greatest of ALL spaghetti westerns, not just the ones directed by Sergio Leone, and Morricone's musical scores for those films will always stand out.

I know others will argue with me and I admit I'm not an expert on westerns, but I totally agree. And Morricone's brilliant score helped make it the best. I can't say I've followed his career or looked up many other things he has composed, but he was a great maestro for certain, and the world is the poorer for his loss; luckily, his work remains immortal.

I love western movies. I think Once upon a time in the West is my most watched movie ever

But there were so many brilliant other movies and his scores were big part why they worked for me.

GubernatorFan wrote:

ThePhotogsBlog wrote:i can remember a time in 1967 or 68...I was just a kid, but "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly" had just been released in North America and the theme musing from that film was a big hit and was being played on the radio all the time.  The film itself is, and will always be, IMHO the greatest of ALL spaghetti westerns, not just the ones directed by Sergio Leone, and Morricone's musical scores for those films will always stand out.

I know others will argue with me and I admit I'm not an expert on westerns, but I totally agree. And Morricone's brilliant score helped make it the best. I can't say I've followed his career or looked up many other things he has composed, but he was a great maestro for certain, and the world is the poorer for his loss; luckily, his work remains immortal.

Leone I think, changed the way the western was staged and filmed. Whereas American westerns had featured actors with clean faces and short, well trimmed hair, Leone filled his cast with ugly and scruffy people and made them look so sweaty you could almost smell them. He used long scenes with close ups to build tension. The gunfight in the cemetery in TGTBATU is one of the finest western movie scenes of all times. Casting Lee Van Cleef as the heavy was brilliant. Though he only kills three people in the film, all at the beginning, he just projects evil from beginning to end, all with his eyes and his grin.

While I agree TGTB&TU is a great movie, and one of my all-time favorites, I can’t agree it’s the greatest Western of all time. One of the greatest Spaghetti Westerns? Sure — right after Once Upon A Time In The West, imho, which is considered — even by Leone himself — to be his Magnum Opus (as an aside, Leone wanted Eastwood to play the part of Harmonica, but by then Clint was too busy, so he hired Brosnan). But there are other Westerns just as great in their own way — High Noon, The Magnificent Seven, The Outlaw Josey Wales, True Grit, and The Searchers, just to name a few. Personally, I’d have a hard time picking just one Western to call the Greatest of All Time.

Ohh, I didn't say TGTB&TU was the greatest western of all time; I feel it's the greatest "Spaghetti Western" of all time. In MHO opinion, the greatest western of all times is "The Searchers."

Others that need to go on the list, in no particular order:

Others on my top list

Stagecoach
High Noon
The Outlaw Josey Wales
The Shootist
Little Big Man
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
Unforgiven
Tombstone
Once Upon A Time In The West
She Wore A Yellow Ribbon
The Magnificent Seven

Saddened to hear of his passing, but glad that Mr. Morricone got to live a long, fulfilling life.

Stryker2011 - Thanks for bringing up his scoring for "The Thing". I think a lot of people forget that the haunting heartbeat of that movie was by him.

PhotogsBlog - I 'd like to add "Silverado" to that list. An great movie with an amazing cast that seems to get overlooked far too often.

You created a real piece of Art. I´m sure Enrico see it form above and smile. Fantastic Work

Ephiane wrote:You created a real piece of Art. I´m sure Enrico see it form above and smile. Fantastic Work

Yeah I forgot to mention it in my answer...l really like Ovys pictures! Great tribute.

Oh my goodness, I completely missed this. I had no idea he passed away.... thanks for posting this in his memory. <3