Despite the huge list of movies he has composed for, the only one I might have seen is "Lorenzo's Oil", and I'm not sure if I actually saw it or just heard the name quite a bit due to living in Pittsburgh at the time.
Yup that's how I knew of Ecstacy of Gold originally. First album I ever had. Our walk out song in HS basketball was to the S&M version. I also went to the second showing of S&M^2 in SF.
"Prolific" is a bit demeaning. He took soundtracks into mainstream consciousness in the '60s, and "The Good The Bad and The Ugly" is still an absolute masterpiece.
In criticism the word prolific is often used in a demeaning manner to imply that the artist under question has not put as much thought and care into their pieces as they might or should have, but instead went for quantity over quality.
I think though this usage has fallen out of favor and at any rate was probably more common among poor critics, I think nowadays it is understood that quantity of output might be necessary for some creators to achieve their best work (by producing some that is not as great as their best)
on edit: so the word is sometimes sort of a snob-whistle, ooh prolific, well they're saying he's not that good then. But I doubt that is the way it is being used here.
It is also very often used of outstanding creators who are incredibly productive. I have seen it used that way many times. If anybody is using it pejoratively they need to stop. I think it would be a terrible shame if we had to tip-toe round our use of language because of misuse by others. I'm firmly against letting a small minority who are abusing language set the linguistic agenda in that way, although I have to say I don't remember seeing that usage myself.
I fully agree. As a lover of both music and cinema, I’ve (thankfully) never come across this linguistic abuse of “prolific”. If I did encounter it, the writer would immediately lose my respect and I’d probably stop reading.
I've never seen the word prolific being used as a demeaning adjective; the term derives from latin "proles" and "facere", as in creating children, in other words being productive. It's completely neutral wrt quality.
It's fascinating to me how you consistently produce shitty comments that cause other, possibly good people to waste time. I don't understand what you get out of it, but maybe I'm assuming too much in thinking that you're doing it on purpose?
ok, thanks, person whom I'm not familiar with but evidently has had a negative experience with me.
I just thought it was unlikely that anyone would consider the kind of snobbish attitude that I described as a deterrent to picking their name, or that they would even be necessarily familiar with it, as that would mean spending a lot of time reading somewhat antiquated literary theory.
but I guess I caused good people to waste their time, thereby.
No I'm not. It indicates quantity, with little indication of quality. In artistic fields that's often used to describe people whose production was abundant but not necessarily remarkable in qualitative terms. People making jingles for tv ads are prolific. Morricone was more than prolific; he was a genius who changed his field and left a massive legacy.
Contra examples from simply googling "prolific + NAME":
Wikipedia on Mozart:
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart[a] (27 January 1756 – 5 December 1791), baptised as Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart,[b] was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period.
British Library on Beethoven:
Ludwig van Beethoven was a very prolific composer, producing many symphonies, concertos, piano sonatas, violin sonatas, an opera, masses and several overtures.
NY Times on Bach:
If any measure of quality is applied to such a comparison, as it must be, Bach was one of the most prolific composers who ever lived; that meager output from Cöthen, for example, includes the “Brandenburg” Concertos, the orchestral suites, other concertos and the astounding solo works for violin and for cello.
The day to day and dictionary definitions of prolific contain no indication of quality. Mozart is probably the best known prolific composer. In all the artistic fields I'm aware, prolific is a complement, and orthogonal to quality. There are both prolific geniuses and prolific hacks.
I don't know most of his work, but I've had two channels into it in my life.
1. I have distinct childhood memories of the score from Once Upon a Time in the West from when my dad watched it (and then watching it myself). It still stirs something deep, that's not just nostalgia.
2. Following Mike Patton's musical journey and finding the haunting version The Ballad of Hank McCain in collaboration with John Zorn - from an album composed entirely of covers of Ennio Morricone tracks (The Big Gundown).
I went to see his live performance in Amsterdam a few years back. The show had been postponed due to back injury but it ended up happening a year later, and it was mesmerizing.
He never had the public recognition he deserved unfortunately. I'm still surprised at how many people can whistle many of his pieces without knowing who he is.
My statement is biased by my own experiences I admit. Maybe the honorary Oscar he received in 2007 is somewhat a more objective illustration of what I meant.
So did the beatles songs. I'm not sure licensing creation to ads is a sigh of loving money. Could even be the opposite: his songs may have been the most affordable quality melodies licensed for ads.
My impression is that he's very well known here in Europe. Sure, not as much as whoever the year's pop sensation is, but Morricone is one of the few modern composers many people know by name.
His death is now a major headline on news sites from several different countries, too.
In France at least (and in Italia I guess) Morricone is very well known. If you would ask people to cite at least one famous score composer Morricone would probably be cited amongst the first, closely followed by Vladimir Cosma.
Actually it is not Morricone public recognition that we should worry about since it is already quite wide, but the fact that he's almost the only Italian composer to get all the fame, while there is so many of them that deserve better recognition, including Morricone collaborators such as Bruno Nicolai and Allessandroni which is responsible for the infamous whistling in Morricone scores.
I suspect it's a cultural and generational thing. These days many Americans can't name the modern composers who score the films they watch.
For the generation who grew up with the Fistful series, they probably know Ennio Morricone is extricably linked to Sergio Leone, much in the same way my generation knows John Williams and George Lucas are linked.
7 years ago Bruce Springsteen in Milan used this song as the intro theme for his concert and it was the best thing ever. Still get shivers looking at the video
Morricone scored most of the films that Elio Petri and Gian Maria Volonté made together... that's another iconic film partnership that Morricone was part of, though less centrally in this case.
https://youtu.be/qwb3P0fuM1c That's awesome. So many crappy movies these days. 50+ years old, its amazing to me the quality is so high as well. I'm going to have to rent this.
This movie for me is the ultimate proof that less talking is often better. The picture itself can speak volumes, I mean first 15 minutes of the movie there are like 10 sentences being said altogether, yet the story is well laid out.
This was one of few movies from the west that was allowed behind iron curtain, it became part of my childhood. I've seen it at least 15 times, it never gets boring even for a second. Timeless story, character, and the music... Leone/Morricone understood (in similar vein as George Lucas and others) that music can make one hell of atmosphere for the movie, much better than just awesome visuals and something mediocre in the background.
I like it even better than rest of Leone's movies, maybe a bit sentimental remainder from my childhood.
His themes were often iconic for their distinctive instrumentation and perhaps The Mission was the clearest example. It's a crime that he lost the Oscar to Herbie Hancock. Although the surf guitar sounds a bit cheesy or dated today, the main theme for The Sicilian Clan is another underappreciated and original creation of his: https://youtu.be/GwmdscZNTQU
Even smaller works like made-for-TV The Scarlet and the Black were iconic, IMO. One of the few composers who make it so you can recall a movie just by a few notes or one instrument in a song.
I'm a very big fan of him. It's so sad but we all knew he was in the late stages of his life.
He was for me the biggest composer of the second half of 20th century, which just happened to do music for films (also for some Italian pop music, but it was less prolific there).
> He was for me the biggest composer of the second half of 20th century, which just happened to do music for films (also for some Italian pop music, but it was less prolific there).
My thought exactly. He actually made film music a genre by itself - even though I like to think of film music the other way round and tend to consider that it's actually the last refuge of well-written, and in that sense "classical", music. Come to think of it, it's actually film music that unifies the wildly different, highly creative, rich and thoughtful music from Glass to Legrand, from Vangelis to Morricone, from Sakamoto to Metheny.
He toured with live performances very frequently, only retiring from live music last year, at age of 90. I saw him twice and both were filled with really serious fans of all ages.
While he was prolific (350+ movie scores credits on imdb), I really feel as I am re-experiencing the movie while listening to Morricone's soundtracks, more than from any other composer, especially for "Cinema Paradiso", "Frantic" and, I think, the most meaningful Spaghetti Western, "Duck, You Sucker" (!).
I was lucky enough to see him at Radio City about a decade ago, with the entirety of the Roma Sinfonietta playing for him and for us. It was one of the most impressive and moving musical performances I have ever seen in my life.
Seeing a coloratura soprano do The Ecstasy Of Gold right before me was mindblowing.
I had the privilege of seeing him live a few years ago. It strikes me how, despite his world-wide-acclaimed genius, he managed to remain so humble and reserved.
It took decades for the world to finally recognize his greatness (he only got a honorary Oscar in 2007 and finally in 2016, at 87 years of age, the first Oscar for a soundtrack), but it did finally happen. If you have 2 minutes, look for the video of the acceptance speech. It's difficult to avoid crying.
So many amazing moments in the Sergio Leone movies alone. One of my favourites is the pocket watch from "A Few Dollars More" which features on its own and also as part of the final duel:
This is where I'm supposed to empty out my HN eggcup, wear it on my head like a hat, and tell you that you're wrong because it's not a song, because it doesn't have any singing , vocal signal or poetry in it.
Metallica introduced me to his music and then I explored a lot. Had a privilege to witness his performance live once. Ennio Morricone is a legend! RIP Maestro!
So very sad :( One of my all time favourite composers. Such emotive music that bring back so many memories, not least my wife walking down the aisle to me to Gabriel's Oboe. RIP.
Bobak Ferdowsi, an engineer who wrote a lot of the operating procedures for the Curiosity Rover was a huge fan as well, and paid tribute in a tweet that encapuslates Morricone's spirit [1].
[1] - https://twitter.com/tweetsoutloud/status/1280043423429345280
He scored "La Bataille d'Alger"[1] ("The Battle of Algiers"), directed by Gillo Pontecorvo, which depicted events that took place in Algiers (specifically the Casbah), Algeria, during the war for independence. Algeria celebrated its independence day yesterday.
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[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 231 ms ] threadhttps://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hmtzRo-Qro8
Anyone who hasn't been in a Metallica concert, it is totally worth it, especially their (always the same) intro!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKypYslGEA8
Although it was enough to get me to pick up "Yo-yo Ma plays Ennio Morricone" that I also recommend:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQCGvfBc-oI&list=PL2D68C2EE4...
Despite the huge list of movies he has composed for, the only one I might have seen is "Lorenzo's Oil", and I'm not sure if I actually saw it or just heard the name quite a bit due to living in Pittsburgh at the time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_compositions_by_Ennio_...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ecstasy_of_Gold
"American metal band Metallica has used "The Ecstasy of Gold" as the introductory music for its concerts since 1984."
I think though this usage has fallen out of favor and at any rate was probably more common among poor critics, I think nowadays it is understood that quantity of output might be necessary for some creators to achieve their best work (by producing some that is not as great as their best)
on edit: so the word is sometimes sort of a snob-whistle, ooh prolific, well they're saying he's not that good then. But I doubt that is the way it is being used here.
Also, I think nobody would use it as their company name if that word was even remotely related to low quality:) http://www.prolific.com.tw/US/index.aspx
I just thought it was unlikely that anyone would consider the kind of snobbish attitude that I described as a deterrent to picking their name, or that they would even be necessarily familiar with it, as that would mean spending a lot of time reading somewhat antiquated literary theory.
but I guess I caused good people to waste their time, thereby.
So you agree that it's not an indication of quality, but claim that it's pejorative. Why?
> Morricone was more than prolific;
But he was prolific.
Wikipedia on Mozart:
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart[a] (27 January 1756 – 5 December 1791), baptised as Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart,[b] was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period.
British Library on Beethoven:
Ludwig van Beethoven was a very prolific composer, producing many symphonies, concertos, piano sonatas, violin sonatas, an opera, masses and several overtures.
NY Times on Bach:
If any measure of quality is applied to such a comparison, as it must be, Bach was one of the most prolific composers who ever lived; that meager output from Cöthen, for example, includes the “Brandenburg” Concertos, the orchestral suites, other concertos and the astounding solo works for violin and for cello.
1. I have distinct childhood memories of the score from Once Upon a Time in the West from when my dad watched it (and then watching it myself). It still stirs something deep, that's not just nostalgia.
2. Following Mike Patton's musical journey and finding the haunting version The Ballad of Hank McCain in collaboration with John Zorn - from an album composed entirely of covers of Ennio Morricone tracks (The Big Gundown).
I'll need to educate myself further.
Fun fact: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly did not receive an academy award nomination in any category.
He probably never cared for public fame.
His death is now a major headline on news sites from several different countries, too.
Actually it is not Morricone public recognition that we should worry about since it is already quite wide, but the fact that he's almost the only Italian composer to get all the fame, while there is so many of them that deserve better recognition, including Morricone collaborators such as Bruno Nicolai and Allessandroni which is responsible for the infamous whistling in Morricone scores.
For the generation who grew up with the Fistful series, they probably know Ennio Morricone is extricably linked to Sergio Leone, much in the same way my generation knows John Williams and George Lucas are linked.
https://youtu.be/AHe07HT5NQA
Sergio Leone and Ennio Morricone has to be one of the greatest partnerships in film history, so many unforgetable moments:
https://youtu.be/qwb3P0fuM1c
Here is a very good old interview, with several references to their collaboration:
https://scrapsfromtheloft.com/2016/12/11/morricone-interview...
Their last film together:
https://youtu.be/Jj5Xczethmw
Hear hear, one of the most evocative pieces ever written, sends shivers down my spine every time. A real masterpiece.
https://youtu.be/Qm3lYTtJ8gs
This was one of few movies from the west that was allowed behind iron curtain, it became part of my childhood. I've seen it at least 15 times, it never gets boring even for a second. Timeless story, character, and the music... Leone/Morricone understood (in similar vein as George Lucas and others) that music can make one hell of atmosphere for the movie, much better than just awesome visuals and something mediocre in the background.
I like it even better than rest of Leone's movies, maybe a bit sentimental remainder from my childhood.
He was for me the biggest composer of the second half of 20th century, which just happened to do music for films (also for some Italian pop music, but it was less prolific there).
Requiescat in Pace. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3SAOQfMA44
My thought exactly. He actually made film music a genre by itself - even though I like to think of film music the other way round and tend to consider that it's actually the last refuge of well-written, and in that sense "classical", music. Come to think of it, it's actually film music that unifies the wildly different, highly creative, rich and thoughtful music from Glass to Legrand, from Vangelis to Morricone, from Sakamoto to Metheny.
https://youtu.be/bTYUyDjVCRU
While he was prolific (350+ movie scores credits on imdb), I really feel as I am re-experiencing the movie while listening to Morricone's soundtracks, more than from any other composer, especially for "Cinema Paradiso", "Frantic" and, I think, the most meaningful Spaghetti Western, "Duck, You Sucker" (!).
Seeing a coloratura soprano do The Ecstasy Of Gold right before me was mindblowing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajM4vYCZMZk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JPnR7C8mZQ
Such a haunting piece of music.
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/song?s=t
But in all seriousness, I'm sorry that happened to you, that's terrible.
Metallica introduced me to his music and then I explored a lot. Had a privilege to witness his performance live once. Ennio Morricone is a legend! RIP Maestro!
So long.
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tb-OBWU4qY4