Book Review – Film Music Review

ENNIO MORRICONE: IN HIS OWN WORDS
Edited by Alessandro DeRosa
Translated from the Italian by Maurizio Corbella
368 pages. Color insert with 28 photos. 36 music examples.
Oxford University Press, 2019
www.oup.com/us

Here we have a most welcome discussion of the music by the best known and most respected
Italian film composer of our time and told in his own words. Besides being probably the most prolific film composer in history with over four hundred and fifty film scores, he has also worked in theater, on recordings, also on radio and TV.
Since this book is based on his own words, I will be quoting many excerpts to give the reader some perspective on the thoughts and opinions of this composer.
The conversations took place over several years between Morricone and one of his protégés, Alessandro De Rosa, who works as a freelance musician and is himself a composer and arranger. The book was first published in Italian in 2016. Now it has been faithfully translated by Maurizio Corbella with detailed descriptive endnotes.
At the back of the book are two extensive entries of Morricone’s music: a “Chronological List of Absolute (or Concert) Music” from 1946 to 2016, and a “Chronological List of Applied (or Theater, Film, and TV) Music from 1958 to 2016, both revised by Maurizio Corbella. These are well worth a look to see the prolific career of this composer.

For many readers, Morricone’s film music probably will be of the greatest interest. But Morricone’s early years of arranging for popular artists should be also of interest since they tell about his process of development as an innovative composer.
In the Preface, Morricone clearly states his opinion of the book:

“This is beyond a shadow of a doubt the best book ever written about me, the most authentic, the most detailed and well curated. The truest.”

The book is divided up into six chapters. The first one will be a surprise to many who don’t know about Morricone’s early thoughts for a career. Titled, “A Pact Made with Mephisto: Over a Game of Chess,” he admits in his youth he considered being either a physician or a chess player and not a musician. His chess passion even has involved him playing against Mephisto, an electronic chessboard. He tells how he was very serious about being a chess player and studied the moves of champions like Bobby Fisher. Later, he played against Grandmaster Boris Spassky.
But he didn’t continue in that work because as he said “my father, Mario, a professional trumpeter, did not share my views…He enrolled me at the conservatory in the trumpet class, and only after a number of years did I end up in the composition class, I passed the harmony course with honors, and all my teachers advised me to pursue that direction.” (p 5) He plated trumpet in various orchestras and led to his arranging, mainly for popular singers, included the great tenor, Mario Lanza, who had recorded for RCA in Rome. Morricone then received the chance to arrange music for films. His first score was for THE FASCIST (Il federale) by Luciano Salce in 1961.

The second chapter, “A Composer Lent to Cinema,” and the third one, “Music and Images,” are the longest and most relevant for film music fans. In them he discusses his years of working on films and the people he worked with, such as Italian directors, Sergio Leone and Giuseppe Tornatore. Also, Americans too, like Terrence Malick and Quentin Tarantino. Not all his experiences with directors were happy ones. He tells of composing music for John Carpenter’s film, THE THING (1982). To Morricone’s surprise, his orchestral recording made in Los Angeles was not used in the film and Carpenter decided instead to use the version for just synthesizers. Morricone said: “I was astonished, if not upset. What could I do at that pint? I had to live with it.” (p 116)
One of the sections in the Chapter 3 especially interested me as a film music historian and also as a composer. Morricone was asked by De Rosa about U.S. composers that he admired. He replies that he liked Quincy Jones and especially his score for THE PAWNBROKER (1964) which Morricone said: “I think it’s just fantastic.” (p 112)

Then he next names John Williams who he met when in Los Angeles for the Academy Awards ceremony in 2016 [shown above] He says John Williams is “a complete musician who has scored myriads of films, some of which are known worldwide.” He names other film composers too, like Bernard Herrmann, Max Steiner, Elmer Bernstein, Jerry Goldsmith and French composer, Maurice Jarre. He gives a special compliment to Herrmann’s score to PSYCHO, saying it “was magnificent, clear, written by one hand only: Herrmann’s.” (p 113) He is also critical of how films have been scored, saying “today music is thought of merely as ‘melody,’ and everything surrounding it is considered of secondary importance. This is absurd, because in my opinion a composer should be the one who writes music from the beginning to the end.” (p 113)
Morricone later mentions his difference of compositional approach to STAR WARS. He again mentions John Williams who he again calls “an exceptionally gifted composer whom I greatly respect. Like all his other scores, his music for STAR WARS is also the work of a true musician, and yet, in that case, he made a commercial choice — understandable, but still commercial.”
(p 113) Morricone then adds: ” I could not have scored STAR WARS in that way, maybe that’s why neither Lucas nor Disney has ever considered hiring me for that next trilogy…at least so far.” Then he smiled and goes on to praise Stanley Kubrick for using “The Blue Danube” in 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, which Morricone said was “highly compelling and sophisticated.” (p 114)

There are some surprises in Morricone’s statements too. He mentions, for example, that the beautiful “Deborah’s Theme” from ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA (1984) – one of my favorite Morricone scores – was actually written while he was in the U.S. working on another film. After playing some of his past themes for director, Sergio Leone, he said that “Deborah’s theme is indisputably the most successful one.” (p 68).
The final three chapters deal with music composition in general, especially Morricone’s thoughts on “Absolute” or contemporary music. These chapters will probably appeal more to budding composers or university teachers and students than to the general reader.
There are some very handsome photographs in middle of the book, including Morricone and DeRosa checking over the book’s manuscript, Morricone holding his trumpet from the 1970s, and receiving the Oscar for his score to THE HATEFUL EIGHT in 2016, handed to him by his good friend, Quincy Jones.

I’m not a fan of short music examples since they don’t give you much to follow. The ones throughout the book are frequently hard to read but they are in the hand of Morricone himself so allowances can be made for them. In any case, these music examples would probably be of interest mainly to musicians and music students.

I think the comments made by composer John Williams on the back cover of the book sums up this composer’s career when he writes: “Ennio Morricone has consistently proven to be one of the most imaginative and idiosyncratic composers in the history of cinema. This book reveals the powerful personality behind his brilliant work and will be rewarding for anyone interested in the magic of music in film.”
This book is a fascinating collection of reflections by Ennio Morricone about his long and very productive music career.
I highly recommend this book by a great innovative Italian composer.

–Roger Hall, 9 March 2019