Morricone speaks out on modern church music
Legendary film composer Ennio Morricone was recently featured in an interview conducted by Zenit, “a non-profit international news agency comprising a team of professionals and volunteers who are convinced of the extraordinary richness of the Catholic Church’s message, particularly its social doctrine.” His views on contemporary music in the church as oppposed to classical music has garnered some interest in religious circles. The composer, who is of course best known for his influential Spaghetti western music but also for soaring orchestral scores such as Once Upon a Time in America, The Mission and The Untouchables, said to Zenit: “Today the Church has made a big mistake, turning the clock back 500 years with guitars and popular songs. I don’t like it at all. Gregorian Chant is a vital and important tradition of the Church and to waste this by having kids mix religious words with profane, Western songs is hugely grave, hugely grave.” Morricone applauds Pope Benedict XVI’s efforts to reform the liturgy and calls him “a very high minded Pope, a man of great culture and also great strength.”
Talking to Zenit about his film music, he says: “I am called to serve the film. If the film is violent, then I compose music for a violent film. If a film is about love, I work for a film of love. Perhaps there can be violent films in which there is sacredness or have mystical elements to the violence, but I don’t willingly look for these films. I try to strike a balance with the spirituality of the film, but the director doesn’t always think the same way.” Morricone admits that he get a lot of requests to score westerns, but claims that they make up only eight percent of his repertoire. “I tend not to do them because I prefer variety,” Morricone says. Still, the Internet Movie Database lists 51 western films on his filmography.
Read the whole interview at Zenit’s web site.
I’ve really grown to love and appreciate Ennio Morricone’s music, and the new soundtrack to Inglourious Basterds has just gone on to remind me of the fact that Morricone is a musical genius!
Check out my blog @ http://scorecrave.blogspot.com/ for my review on Inglourious Basterds, the soundtrack album!
Morricone is a legend. I love his spaghetti western compositions. My favorite was the theme from The Good, The Bad and the Ugly.
The Zenit piece with a rare Morricone interview by Edward Pentin would have been of great value to fans of the “grande maestro” ['great master'] as Quincy Jones rightly calls Ennio Morricone.
Talking about faith ~ and especially God ~ cannot be easy… but Pentin managed to elicit from the Roman composer, orchestrator and conductor things which, really, Morricone has never revealed before. Always, in the past, when he was asked where his inspiration came from ~ and film music aficionados cannot assume it would come from the movie, given that Morricone so often writes his music before the film is even shot! ~ Morricone answered that it came from himself. But here, to Pentin, is a ‘confession’: “he believes that God helps him ‘write a good composition, but that’s another story’..”
What I believe is that Ennio Morricone would be more highly thought-of amongst film music fans (there are websites which make almost no mention of Morricone, which is some kind of disgrace) if they could simply venture out and hear more of his unmatched range. NO composer anywhere, certainly not in Hollywood, even BEGINS to get near him. And do remember that Maestro Morricone writes every note of his own music! ~ “orchestrators”? There are SIX credited on the soundtrack CD of ‘Gladiator’, and who is it Hans Zimmer most admires? ~ goodness! ~ it’s Ennio Morricone…
As to religious music: The Zenit piece has omitted to mention that Morricone has created musical commentaries to the lives of two recent popes, John XXIII and John Paul II. Perhaps Zenit was wise after all to not mention Morricone’s powerful, choral driven score to 1973’s ‘Giordano Bruno’ when Gian Maria Volonte – world-renowned for his baddies in the first two Leone westerns – had played the Dominican priest burned at the stake in 1600. But there was an instance less embarrassing to the Church… yet another of Morricone’s many fine works: the more recent ‘Padre Pio, Tra Cielo e Terra’, concerning the life of the saintly stigmatist. Decades before Vangelis, Morricone had provided his own ‘El Greco’, a score steeped in liturgy, one sadly and undeservedly little-known, yet produced around the same time as those still-admired “spaghetti westerns” and the final proof that we were dealing with a truly awesome talent: if (as happened) an American psychic had claimed that Henry Mancini in a previous life was Giuseppe Verdi ~ one had to wonder: who on earth really was “Ennio Morricone”?
As to those westerns which made him world-famous, it should be borne in mind that Wikipedia lists those films Morricone has actually scored… as well as films which utilize his music ~ so the official count is more like 30 westerns.
But think of that! THIRTY westerns… yes, Jerry Fielding with ‘The Wild Bunch’ and Burt Bacharach with “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid’ and John Williams with ‘The Missouri Breaks’ all did interesting things ~ but try to imagine if any of them should write 30 westerns. True: Elmer Bernstein scored many westerns (of course) but they lack the range and inventiveness (the distinct personalities) which Ennio Morricone amazingly gave to his many scores in that genre. Jerry Goldsmith scored a number of westerns less than Bernstein, but I find now both (particularly Goldsmith) WEAK in comparison to Morricone.
Sceptics should listen again to the variety of music within individual scores such as ‘For a Few Dollars More’, ‘The Good, The Bad & The Ugly’ and ‘Once Upon a Time in the West’. The expanded CD releases blessedly give us little gems such as the piece for acoustic guitar, a theme for Tuco’s brother Father Ramirez in ‘The Good, The Bad & The Ugly’. If you don’t know it, scour the pages of YouTube… listen to just that… and your Goldsmith and Bernstein just won’t sound quite as good!
If the Leone westerns are a bit over-familiar, then how about those ‘personalities’ I mentioned? Seek out (again, YouTube is a good place to go) ‘Two Mules for Sister Sara’, ‘My Name is Nobody’, ‘The Grand Silence’. ‘Sonny & Jed’, ‘The Genius’, ‘A Sky Full of Stars for a Roof’, ‘The Five Man Army’, ‘The Mercenary’, ‘Death Rides A Horse’ (to mention just some). It will be rewarding!
If you are sceptical about Morricone’s ‘genius’, risk the investment in his soundtracks to: ‘Vatel’, ‘Canone Inverso’, ‘La Leggenda del Pianist Sull’Oceano’ and ‘E Ridendo L’Uccise’ ~ then just try and imagine ANYONE capable of such work… In case you are thinking ‘John Williams’? Forget it!
I discovered a lot of Morricones music through Youtube. He’s brilliant. How could anyone doubt his genius?
It’s great products.converse shoes,you may need one.click here http://www.conversewu.com
Hypotheek informatie, hypotheek aanvragen of afsluiten? Hypotheekrentes bekijken. Hypotheek aanbieders vergelijken, hypotheek vormen, bijkomende kosten,
Lenen Zonder BKR Toetsing Lenen zonder BKR toetsing stijgt in populariteit op het Internet. Veel mensen met een zogeheten BKR notatie, die toch geld willen lenen zijn op zoek naar …
Lenen zonder BKR toetsing gaat vandaag heel gemakkelijk. Binnen een paar uur geld lenen zonder BKR toetsing doet u hier, lees snel verder
Feel free to comment!
December 17: Randy Newman: The Princess and the Frog.
Welcome to MovieScore Magazine!
Most popular news
Categories
Film music news
Monthly News Archive
Recent News
Most Commented
Recent Comments