Ennio Morricone - biography, movies, photos

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Italian composer, director and arranger from Rome, who has scored over 500 film, TV and TV soundtracks. Today he is one of the most sought-after musicians of the 20th century. Winner of the Golden Globe Award, Officer of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic and winner of the David di Donatello film award.

The start of the journey

Ennio was born on November 10, 1928 and was the first child in a family with four more children. Mario Morricone's father played the trumpet in a jazz band, Liber's mother Ridolfi was a housewife. Ennio Morricone started writing music at the age of 6. Three years later, he took up the study of playing the trumpet, and at 12 he entered the conservatory, which he graduated 10 years later with three diplomas.

At the age of 16, he took a place in the ensemble where his father used to play, at the position of second trumpeter. With the same team, he worked part-time, playing in local clubs and hotels. At the beginning of 1950 he wrote musical accompaniments for radio and pieces for piano with voice. In another fivehas been trying to create compositions and arrangements for films for years. In the credits, instead of his name, the names of more popular musicians were put, but Ennio Morricone did not mind, because it was a good side job for the main work in the ensemble. According to the musician himself, he could do better soundtracks for films. Ennio never imposed his services, he believed that someday the directors themselves would begin to invite him to their projects. And so it happened.

Sergio Leone

In the early 1960s, Morricone began collaborating with RCA studios. There he came up with arrangements for popular performers at that time. At the same studio, he continued to create music for television shows. Then his compositions were not distinguished by genius, but this was enough for one day Ennio Morricone's house to be visited by his former classmate, Sergio Leone. He asked for a musical score for his new film.

The composer decided to help an old friend. Due to the low funding of the project, it was necessary to look for budgetary and at the same time original musical solutions. Based on real sounds, such as whistling and harmonica. Critics noted that Ennio Morricone's music was too experimental. However, she fit perfectly into Leone's cinematic language.

So the work on the soundtrack for the film "A Fistful of Dollars" took place. This was not their last joint project. The list of their works consists of more than forty films, among which the best are considered:

• "Once Upon a Time in the West".
• "The good, the bad, the ugly."
• "My name is Nobody."

Could Morricone then imagine that Leone's films would become so popular? However, fame never reached Morricone himself, because for the viewer his name in the credits sounded like Leo Nichols or Dan Savio.

Career

Along with the works that have thundered all over the world, new proposals for cooperation have also been received. Directors such as Mario Caiano, Duccio Tessari, Marco Bellocchio, Pier Pasolini, Gillo Pontecorvo, Vittorio De Seta and other equally famous filmmakers turn to him for help.

Morricone has de alt with a huge number of films. It was impossible to do without Oscar nominations. Until 2001, there were five such nominations, for the following films:

• "Days of Harvest".
• "Mission".
• The Untouchables.
• "Bugsy".
• Malena.

Despite the fact that Ennio Morricone's soundtrack to "The Professional" was not nominated anywhere, this did not prevent him from becoming one of the most popular tunes of the twenty-first century.

Despite his venerable age (this year he will celebrate his 90th birthday), Morricone until 2015 fruitfully worked on the production of compositions for films. Some of his latest collaborations with directors include:

• Works with Quentin Tarantino - The Hateful Eight (2015) and Inglourious Basterds (2009).
• Works with Giuseppe Tornatore - Best Offer (2012), Baariya (2009) and Stranger (2006).

Throughoutthroughout his creative life, the main activity of the composer was writing music for television. In Russia, he was especially remembered for the soundtrack to the series "Octopus", the number of seasons of which is already ten. Also of note is Ennio Morricone's once popular single "The Lonely Shepherd".

Private life

The great composer, whose name is inscribed in the history of cinema, got married back in 1956. Today his family consists of three sons and one daughter. Two boys followed in the footsteps of their father: the first is a director, and the second is a composer. The mother of four children and part-time wife of Ennio Morricone is called Maria Travia.