Whistling + solo trumpet + guitar + snare drums + chorus + dialogue from pulp heaven = wowza!
The great arena scene from Sergio Corbucci’s THE MERCENARY (score by #EnnioMoricone and Bruno Nicolai).
From when movies were not apologetic about swagger.
Watching the opening scene of Roland Joffe’s THE MISSION on Devi theatre’s 70mm screen — with the dead priest being sent over the waterfalls — was eye-popping, to say the least. #EnnioMoricone‘s magnificent score.
The beyond-gorgeous melancholic theme #EnnioMoricone wrote for Deborah in ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA.
Legend has it that the piece was written for another film, but who cares now? It’s Deborah’s theme, and that’s that.
Baradwaj Rangan 
Nish
July 6, 2020
His soundtracks were so amazing and atmospheric! RIP Morricone
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vijay
July 6, 2020
No MD from 70s onwards in IFM who could escape his influence. Terrific scores. Unique, but somehow matched the settings in his movies and painted its own story. IR’s nenje un aasai enna besides other cowboy songs were clearly inspired from Morricone. I feel he should have scored for even Hollywood movies
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Alex John
July 6, 2020
I believe the soundtrack of ‘My name is nobody’ also deserves to be in the list.Transcendental, to say the least.Another legend lost in this fateful year.
RIP Morricone!
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Madan
July 6, 2020
RIP. He was so versatile and dynamic. Just compare the Once Upon A Time theme to the one in Untouchables in the scene where Kevin Costner confronts one of the Capone henchmen in the terrace. Or the electronic based theme in Wolf. And one could go on, so many films across so many genres.
Of all the great Hollywood composers, it was his approach that Raja’s seemed to mirror the most. Because Morricone didn’t have a fixed palate and wasn’t beholden to classical music performed by an orchestra. He would tailor it to the film down to the level of using a different sound design altogether if the film called for it, which is what made his scores so eclectic.
Just like Raja was comfortable in Western and Indian, Morricone (as well as his more illustrious peer John Williams) had a strong grounding in jazz AND classical. That is rare and especially for their time. Morricone played the trumpet and Williams played the piano quite beautifully and they could both also flip to scoring music for orchestras. I do wonder who will step in to fill that void. Feels like the end of an era, curtains going down on a way of movie making that was beautiful and precious.
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Arjun
July 6, 2020
In addition to Deborah’s theme, this was/is such a haunting piece for me especially in the context of the movie.
He was also a prolific composer of orchestral music. I’ve listened to some of them and they are pretty good too.
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Jayram
July 6, 2020
RIP Ennio Morricone. I have his Death theme from the Untocuchables stuck in my head now.
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Madan
July 6, 2020
This is the Untouchables theme I mentioned earlier. It sounds so jagged, so demanding to listen to standalone, you wouldn’t believe how it fits the scene like a glove.
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Madan
July 6, 2020
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/jul/06/ennio-morricone-10-of-his-greatest-compositions
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KayKay
July 7, 2020
RIP Ennio Morricone.
The man left such a great and indelible body of work that some are bound to fall between the cracks in discussions of his scores.
One such is the gorgeous Cinema Paradiso. Achingly romantic and yet whimsical and playful, this one’s my personal favorite.
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Devarsi Ghosh
July 7, 2020
BR, was just thinking about Morricone… and realised minutes ago that Giorgio Moroder is also Italian! It’s amazing that these two Italian giants of music, and contemporaries, never collaborated on anything! Can you imagine? Moroder mixing or producing or remixing Morricone…. God…. (If someone finds anything of this sort, do tell)
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An Jo
July 8, 2020
Once Upon a Time in The West –
The finale –
And Frank Booth’s intro..the inspiration for Sholay’s massacre scene..
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Madan
July 8, 2020
A little tribute from my side to the legend.
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Rad Mahalikudi
July 8, 2020
If you are from 70s & 80s movie goers, you would remember few single screen big theatres had the ritual of raising the screen curtain when the movie is about to start. Usually Red curtain that will raise to the theme music of For a Few Dollars More (FFDM). Of course, I didn’t know about nothing about FFDM or Morricone that time. Saw The Mission in Chennai in 85/86, liked the music but IR took all my bandwidth and didn’t have much time left for others. Finally got to see FFDM in Delhi when Chanakya theatre played the famous Westerns for a week. That I would say was my first exposure to Sergio and Morricone. Thanks to move to US in early 90s, pretty much went after movies of these two along with many other names. A big thanks to Blockbuster rental store collection!!
One of the first few things I did was to buy the music CDs of Ennio Morricone, my prized possessions. I don’t have knowledge of his work outside movies but when it comes to movies, he was one of those who just lifts the scene to another plane that makes us emotionally connect. Madan like you mentioned, scene starts playing in your head just by listening to his track, whether it is Jill’s America, Man with harmonica, Untouchables theme, or Childhood memories.
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Hipstud-69
July 9, 2020
RIP Maestro Morricone. Indubitably, one of the greatest film score composers of all time. Maestro was responsible for setting a trend with his works alongside the Auteur, Sergio Leone. Their collaboration was amongst the best and led to mellifluous, syncretic pieces of Art. For instance, the score of “Once upon a Time in America” is beautiful. To reiterate, His working process also seems to mirror that of Ilaiyaraaja’s. For starters, they both write the scores. Also, they both have been labelled as “Cantankerous” although, I perceive that as the intense discipline towards their work. Also, they both have immense self-confidence, which is misconstrued as arrogance. There was a time when Morricone was earning a lot, although, American producers/ films didn’t pay him sufficiently. He was at the top of the market, yet, paid poorly. In fact, he lamented that he was paid as much as the worst composers. Another parallel with Raja wherein, bollywood failed to recognise his talent and give him his due. It’s also possible that Ilaiyaraaja- The highest earning film score composer in India during his peak- was not offered commensurate offers for his talent and Market value.
It’s quite a shame that he didn’t recieve the adulation that he deserved. To add salt to the wound, there was some article on his death which was titled as “the composer of yayayaya” or some crap like that. That’s shitty journalism at its finest. Another one- Which is unapologetically American- which chose to recognize him only with his success with The hateful eight. Whilst I agree that it got him his Oscar, how can we forget the beautiful scores of- Cinema Paradiso, Malena, The Mission, Once upon a time in America. These soundtracks showcase the depth that his music possesses. While, many write a good melody, they fail to orchestrate it properly. Whereas, Ennio was a precociously talented Orchestrator- Innovating significantly. It also goes without saying that he had a vast knowledge of music which definitely helped him. 500+ scores brimming with quality ain’t no mean feat, it’s something only geniuses like him and Raja can do.
On a side note, I know that this question will ruffle a few feathers but, who is the greater film score composer, Morricone or Ilaiyaraaja?
Rip Maestro Morricone.
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Madan
July 9, 2020
“who is the greater film score composer, Morricone or Ilaiyaraaja?” – A very difficult question. And since their mileus are different, I would rather not compare. I think they both gave BGMs of the highest order within the cultural paradigms they were part of to their films (and both scored a mind boggling number of films). I will say, though, that I can imagine Raja learning everything else that Morricone touched in the Western world that Raja didn’t because Raja himself had reached a pretty advanced level in Western music just based off what he was able to learn here and was himself helluva eclectic. But put Morricone in Raja’s circumstances and I find it hard to imagine him achieving what Raja did. The chance of that happening is one in a million, that a poor man growing up in a fishing village would one day be writing fair copy of scores as the first cut and at a speed so fast he outpaced those trying to simply make copies of his scores for the reference of musicians.
“bollywood failed to recognise his talent and give him his due.” – Here, I don’t think Raja took it very seriously himself. He was not market savvy in the way Rahman seems to have been. He was happy to do whatever music fell in his lap which is why he ended up being restricted to the South. He also did strange things in his Hindi endeavours. For eg, in Sadma, the Hindi remake of Moondram Pirai, he removed Vaanengum and composed Yeh Hawa Yeh Fiza instead, which is decent but pretty staid. As a result, the biggest hits in Hindi from that film ended up being Ae Zindagi and Surmayee Akheeyon Mein, nothing that would showcase the dynamic, volcanic Raja we know. Even the re-do of Ponmeni was sabotaged as somewhere the instrumentation in the Hindi version simply did not have the energy of the Tamil one even though the sound was noticeably better. The keyboard playing in the first interlude was conservative and lacked the bluesy ‘slightly-off-but-not-off’ quality that the Tamil version had.
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Madan
July 9, 2020
As for Morricone himself, he has left behind a huge body of work in Hollywood. It just happens not to include the Star Wars universe or Spielberg, and Spielberg in particular has done the best he could to promote the work of John Williams, who is sort of a friend for him. And there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s just that either Leone or DePalma never did likewise for Morricone or they tried and failed. And then, if Morricone says something caustic about the SW scores, people will hilariously characterise him as jealous the way they did when Scorsese said his Marvel bit. Whereas I think Raja has sometimes betrayed a grudge or discontent over his recognition (even though he now holds the second highest civilian honour in India), I don’t believe Morricone really cared. He was an artist through and through. Whether or not his remuneration was commensurate to his talent, I am sure it was adequate to eke out a decent existence and I don’t know that he wanted more than that. For if he had, he would have made different choices in the movies he worked on and the scores he came up with. He cherished the freedom to be eccentric in ‘lesser’ films which did not have to pander to a large audience’s needs. And when he got to strut his stuff for big films, even better.
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Hipstud-69
July 9, 2020
@Madan Have you seen the BBC documentary on Morricone? This is a common grievance which is oft-repeated by the Maestro himself; The unsatisfactory offers. Honestly, it wasn’t even at par with the best of Hollywood composers (Read:Williams), it was in the lower league. This led to him decline offers and adopting a passive-agressive approach which was gladly met, and he became the highest earning composer again.
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Madan
July 11, 2020
Hipstud-69: Watching the documentary now, thanks for the heads up. I didn’t know about his involvement in the early days of the recording industry. I do get now why his fans too, like Raja’s, feel he was somewhere short changed and remained a misunderstood genius after all the copious amounts of work he did, time and time again.
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Madan
July 11, 2020
Oh, and I didn’t know he transposed Toccata in Fistful of Dollars. Another connection with Raja – the Bach love.
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Hipstud-69
July 11, 2020
Oh, do you know of any compositions Raja Transposed? I can think of Ada Veettukku, which transposed Mozart’s 25th symphony. Although, what else?
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Madan
July 12, 2020
Oh, Raja has used Bach Bourrees or Toccata (not note for note, nor did Morricone) in numerous compositions. The intro of Oru Kiliyin from Poovizhi Vasalile evokes Toccata. Guruvayurappa intro is also straight out of Bach. There are changes to the notes just enough to make it different (or maybe not!), it’s somewhat like John Williams adapting Planets for the Star Wars score.
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rmahalik
July 12, 2020
There is also Chittukuruvi Muththam tharuthu from Chinna Veedu.
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Cathy Cooper
July 18, 2020
What a legend! I could watch “Once upon a time in the West“ multiple times just for that awesome music and background score!
Thanks BR for the diversity and the wide range in your posts, there is something for almost all of your varied readers.
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