"The Legend of 1900" - Ennio Morricone the Maestro

Ennio Morricone conducts his composition “The Legend Of The Pianist On The Ocean,” live in Warsaw, Poland (within the confines of “TPSA Music & Film Festival”), with the Polish Radio Orchestra, Mixed Choir of the Fryderyk Chopin Academy of Music, and The Warsaw Inter-University Choir.
Ennio Morricone, Grande Ufficiale OMRI (born November 10, 1928) is an Italian composer and conductor.

Ennio Morricone is the musician of our times, who has inspired me emotionally and technically more than any other, (excluding the great established classical composers of the past) from the first time I heard his arrangement ( ahead of its time) of a simple love song “Sapore di Sale,” written and sung by Gino Paoli. I was sixteen years of age at that time, and being overwhelmed by the musical arrangement I enquired who was the arranger. After I found out, and with my limited pocket money, I bought every single song I could find with the name E. Morricone on it. Even in those young years, I felt that this E. Morricone was special; I felt a genius not yet discovered.

I was often ridiculed by my peers, for my open endorsement of this unheard of Italian musician, that the world hardly knew and unknown even in Hollywood. But I remained certain of his unique talents and years later, my instinct proved to be correct and I was vindicated!

Today, he is considered one of the most prolific and influential film composers of his era. Morricone has composed and arranged scores for countless film and TV productions. He is well-known for his long-term collaborations with international acclaimed directors such as Sergio Leone, Brian De Palma, Barry Levinson, and Giuseppe Tornatore.

He wrote the characteristic film scores of Sergio Leone’s Spaghetti Westerns A Fistful of Dollars (1964), For a Few Dollars More (1965), The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) and Once Upon a Time in the West(1968). In the 80s, Morricone composed the scores for John Carpenter’s horror movie The Thing (1982), Leone’s Once Upon a Time in America (1984), Roland Joffé’s The Mission(1986), Brian De Palma’s The Untouchables(1987) and Giuseppe Tornatore’s Cinema Paradiso (1988). His more recent compositions include the scores for Oliver Stone’s U Turn(1997), Tornatore’s The Legend of 1900 (1998) and Malèna(2000), De Palma’s Mission to Mars(2000), Lajos Koltai’s Fateless (2005), and Tornatore’s Baaria – La porta del Vento (2009).

Two of my personal favourites recordings of Ennio, remain his brilliant arrangements and recordings which he made with the French singing star Mireille Matthieu recorded in the 1970’s, and his musical score of Nove Cento (1900) for the film of that name; a truly inspirational work.

Morricone has won two Grammy Awards, two Golden Globes, five Anthony Asquith Awards for Film Music by BAFTA in 1979–1992 and the Polar Music Prize in 2010. He has been nominated for five Academy Awards for Best Music, Original Score during 1979–2001. He received the Academy Honorary Award in 2007 “for his magnificent and multifaceted contributions to the art of film music”.

Ennio was born in Rome, the son Mario and Libera Morricone, a jazz trumpeter. Morricone wrote his first compositions when he was six years old and was encouraged to develop these natural talents. he was forced to take up the trumpet, he had first gone to the National Academy of Santa Ceciliato take lessons on the instrument at the age of nine. Morricone formally entered the conservatory in 1940 at the age of 12.  He studied the trumpet, composition, choral music, and choral direction under Goffredo Petrassi, who deeply influenced him and to whom Morricone has dedicated concert pieces. These were the difficult years of World War II in the heavily bombed “open city”; the suffering of the people and his feelings of constant hunger, was part of his wartime experiences that influenced many of his scores for films set in that period.

 Morricone has worked for television, from a single title piece to variety shows and documentaries to TV series, including the US TV Western The Virginian (1971), Moses (1974) and Marco Polo (1982). One notable composition, “Chi Mai” was used in the films, Maddalena (1971)[15] and Le Professionnel (1981) as well as the TV series The Life and Times of David Lloyd George (1981).  He wrote the score for the Mafia television series La piovra , including the themes “Droga e sangue” (“Drugs and Blood”), “La morale”, and “L’immorale.

Morricone worked as the conductor of seasons 3 to 5 of the series. He also worked as the music supervisor for the television project La bibbia (“The Bible”). In the late 1990s, he collaborated with his son, Andrea, on the Ultimo crime dramas. Their collaboration yielded the BAFTA-winningNuovo cinema Paradiso. In 2003, Ennio Morricone scored another epic, for Japanese television, called Musashi and was the Taiga drama about Miyamoto Musashi, Japan’s legendary warrior. A part of his “applied music” is now applied to Italian television films.

There is much more that can be written about this great composer and to this very day I remain his most fervent and devoted fan and I thank heaven, that we were able to live at this time to be fortunate to listen to his music and be part of this composers unequalled creative experience.

Dario Poli

Ennio Morricone Conducting his music at the United Nations.

International Prizes and Awards for music accorded to Ennio Morricone!

• 1965 — Nastro d’Argento for A Fistful of Dollars
  1967 — Diapason d’Or
  1969 — Premio Spoleto Cinema
  1970 — Nastro d’argento for Metti una sera a cena
  1971 — Nastro d’argento for Sacco e Vanzetti
  1972 — Cork Film International for La califfa
  1979 — Oscar Nomination for Days of Heaven
  1979 — Premio Vittorio de Sica
  1981 — Premio della critica discografica for Il prato
  1984 — Premio Zurlini
  1985 — Nastro d’argento and BAFTA for Once Upon A Time In America
  1986 — Oscar Nomination, BAFTA and Golden Globe Award for The Mission
  1986 — Premio Vittorio de Sica
  1988 — Nastro d’argento, BAFTA, Grammy Award and Oscar Nomination for The Untouchables
  1988 — David di Donatello for Gli occhiali d’oro
  1989 — David di Donatello for Nuovo Cinema Paradiso
  1989 — Ninth Annual Ace Winner for Il giorno prima
  1989 — Pardo d’Oro alla carriera (Locarno Film Festival)
  1990 — BAFTA, Prix Fondation Sacem del XLIII Cannes Film Festival and David di Donatello for Nuovo Cinema Paradiso
  1991 — David di Donatello for Stanno tutti bene
  1992 — Oscar Nomination for Bugsy
  1992 — Pentagramma d’oro
  1992 — Premio Michelangelo
  1992 — Grolla d’oro alla carriera (Saint Vincent)
  1993 — David di Donatello and Efebo d’Argento for Jonas che visse nella balena
  1993 — Globo d’oro Stampa estera in Italia
  1993 — Gran Premio SACEM audiovisivi
  1994 — ASCAP Golden Soundtrack award (Los Angeles)
  1995 — Premio Rota
  1995 — Leone d’Oro Honorary award (Venice Film Festival)
  1996 — Premio Cappelli
  1996 — Premio Accademia di Santa Cecilia
  1997 — Premio Flaiano
  1998 — Columbus Prize
  1999 — Erich Wolfgang Korngold Internationaler Preis für Film
  1999 — Exsquibbidles Film Academy lifetime achievement award
  2000 — Golden Globe Award for The Legend of 1900 (1998)
  2000 — David di Donatello for Canone inverso
  2000 — Oscar nomination for Malèna
  2002 — Honorary Degree by the “Seconda Università” of Rome
  2003 — Golden Eagle Award for 72 Meters
  2003 — Honorary Senator of the Filmscoring Class of the Hochschule für Musik und Theater München
  2006 — Grand Officer award from President of the Italian Republic Carlo Azeglio Ciampi
  2007 — Honorary Academy Award for career achievement
  2007 — The Film & TV Music Award for Lifetime Achievement
  2008 — Grammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental, performed by Bruce Springsteen
  2008 — Knight in the Order of the Legion of Honor
  2009 — Medal of Merits for Macedonia[25]
  2009 — America Award of the Italy-USA Foundation
  2010 — Polar Music Prize of the Royal Swedish Academy of the Arts