Italy's Ennio Morricone, Oscar-winning composer for the movies, dies at 91

[ucrdem]

Source: France 24

Ennio Morricone, the Italian composer whose haunting scores to Spaghetti Westerns like "A Fistful of Dollars" and "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" helped define a cinematic era, has died. He was 91.

Morricone had broken his femur some days ago and died during the night in a clinic in Rome, Italian news agency ANSA said on Monday.

Born in Rome in 1928, Morricone wrote scores for some 400 films but his name was most closely linked with the director Sergio Leone, with whom he worked on the now-classic Spaghetti Westerns as well as "Once Upon a Time in America".

Read more: https://www.france24.com/en/20200706-italy-s-ennio-morricone-oscar-winning-composer-for-the-movies-dies-at-91

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[Tactical Peek]

1. The Untouchables, Death Theme

reprise

[Tanuki]

2. Gabriel's Oboe from The Mission

[chowder66]

4. I adore the music from the Mission. What a loss.

[Danascot]

10. This is my favorite version of Gabriel's Oboe

Sung by Kiwi soprano Hayley Westenra. Morricone and Westenra collaborated to make an album, Paradiso. It was recorded with Morricone's orchestra.

All of the tracks on Paradiso are lovely. It's hard to choose but probably my favorite is 'Profumo Di Limone'

[rockfordfile]

3. Really like "Once Upon a Time in The West"

One of the best Westerns.

[intrepidity]

8. Agreed! nt

[Danascot]

11. While written as an orchestral piece many singers have covered "Once Upon a Time in The West"

No lyrics, just voice. Here's a version by Patricia Janečková, a young Czech soprano, recorded when she was 15 at a beauty pageant of all things.

[muriel_volestrangler]

5. A slightly different take on The Good, The Bad and The Ugly:

[John Fante]

6. RIP maestro.

This is my favorite piece from him. It's so beautiful, it hurts.

[Ferretherder]

7. This is a tough one for me...

...I knew this would be coming, because of his advanced age, but it is still very hard to say goodbye to a man - who I never got to meet in real life - that had such a profound influence on not only my own music, but my life as a whole, in that when I remember some sweet, and some painful moments in my early life, I do so against a soundtrack of music that always seems to be dominated by my favorite pieces from his many lush and dynamic film scores.

Goodbye, sir...and, thank you so much for your brilliant works of music.

[Dukkha]

9. My favorite of his

L'Arena from Il Mercenario. R.I.P. to a great master.

[spiderpig]

12. Cinema Paradiso,

One of the best movie endings ever.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

13. The Mission

I was a kid when The Mission first came out, and I remember my parents—being the progressive Catholics that they are—were really taken by not only the movie but its soundtrack. And I remember hearing the entire soundtrack playing in our house on many occasions. And after I saw the movie, I had to say that it matched the cinematic beauty and lushness of the film perfectly.

A couple of weeks ago I heard one of the tracks from the movie being used as a reflection piece, and it immediately took me back. A wonderful soundtrack.

[Ohio Joe]

14. RIP

[DinahMoeHum]

15. Rest In Peace, good sir.

. . .and thank you for all your brilliant music.

#newrostrong

[lagomorph777]

16. I loved his work on the Sergio Leone spaghetti Westerns.

Absolutely amazing.

[dustyscamp]

17. Sad day

I think this is one of his best and most underrated songs

[yaesu]

18. Our Local Grit channel showed "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" last night, it was planned

for this weekend, it is one of my favorite movies. The scores make the movie as much as the visuals & they were spot on. R.I.P Ennio Morricone.

[LudwigPastorius]

19. Cosi a lungo, maestro. Grazie.

[Coventina]

20. I recently purchased his collaboration with Yo-Yo Ma.

Great CD. Highly recommended!

[Polybius]

21. Perhaps the second greatest composer of our lifetimes

RIP.

[Aristus]

22. A piece of heartbreaking loveliness:

I have a special connection to this piece of music. I was doing a local community theater production of the Sherlock Holmes play "The Crucifer Of Blood".

Holmes appears in the second scene of the play. The director of the play set the first scene transitioning to the second to this piece of music. The set change took place in darkness as the stage crew brought in the Baker Street set. Halfway through the piece, a solo violin takes up the melody. The lights come up dimly on Holmes (me) playing the violin. The music captures Holmes's depression and melancholy perfectly. Indeed, after the music finishes, Holmes shoot up with cocaine!

[dhill926]

23. bookmarking this, to listen to at length later....

another giant gone. His score to The Mission, was voted best movie score of all time. Yet it didn't win the Oscar...

[Kali]

24. I did not realize he was still alive

bummer

[burrowowl]

25. RIP

Took movie music to a new high!

[Paladin]

26. RIP. (nt)

[regnaD kciN]

27. Strange...I was just thinking of his score for "Days of Heaven" yesterday...

I guess it was because one of the fireworks displays shown on CNN the day before had been accompanied by Saint-Saëns' The Aquarium, which was played over the opening titles of that film, and was the only piece of the score not composed by Morricone. It reminded me of the rest of the score, which had at least a couple of Morricone's best themes.