Ennio
Morricone Mini biography: A classmate of director Sergio
Leone with whom he would form one of the great director/composer
partnerships (right up there with Eisenstein & Prokofiev,
Hitchcock & Herrmann, Fellini & Rota), Ennio Morricone
studied at Rome's Santa Cecilia Conservatory, where he
specialised in trumpet. His first film scores were relatively
undistinguished, but he was hired by Leone for Per un
pugno di dollari (1964) on the strength of some of his
song arrangements. His score for that film, with its sparse
arrangements, unorthodox instrumentation (bells, electric
guitars, harmonicas, the distinctive twang of the jew's
harp) and memorable tunes, revolutionised the way music
would be used in Westerns, and it is hard to think of
a post-Morricone Western score that doesn't in some way
reflect his influence. Although his name will always be
synonymous with the spaghetti Western, Morricone has also
contributed to a huge range of other film genres: comedies,
dramas, thrillers, horror films, romances, art movies,
exploitation movies -making him one of the film world's
most versatile artists. He has written nearly 400 film
scores, so a brief summary is impossible, but his most
memorable work includes the Leone films, Gillo Pontecorvos
_Battaglia di Algeri, La (1965)_ , Roland Joffé's The
Mission (1986), Brian De Palma's The Untouchables (1987)
and Giuseppe Tornatore's Nuovo cinema Paradiso (1988),
plus a rare example of sung opening credits for Pier Paolo
Pasolini's Uccellacci e uccellini (1966). It must be stressed
that he is *not* behind the work of the entirely separate
composers Bruno Nicolai and Nicola Piovani despite allegations
made by more than one supposedly reputable film guide!
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