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10 essential film scores by Ennio Morricone

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Music by the Italian composer, who died Monday at age 91, has left an indelible imprint on many genres, from spaghetti westerns and gangster dramas to historic epics and horror (with audio excerpts)
Academy Award-winning composer Ennio Morricone, who left an indelible musical imprint on film genres as varied as „spaghetti westerns“ and epic gangster dramas, died on Monday in Rome at the age of 91.
Morricone’s music has been featured in more than 500 films and TV productions over the past six decades, none more iconic than a trilogy of Italian films in the 1960s that remade the mythology of the Old West as depicted by Hollywood. The Morricone vibe, as evocatively captured in „The Good, the Bad and the Ugly,“ blended the modern (an electric guitar) with the old-school (whistling, wordless vocals, a jaw harp).
Born in Rome in 1928, he studied classical composition and wrote for the recital hall, radio and the stage, but made his living in the 1950s conducting and arranging pop songs and playing in a jazz combo. He transitioned to composing for films, ghostwriting for some and sharing contractual credit with his director on others. His first full credit was on 1961’s „The Fascist.“
Over the years, Morricone received two Academy Awards, three Golden Globes and two Grammys.
Tributes poured in today from across the music world. Oscar-winner Hans Zimmer told the BBC that seeing and hearing „Once Upon a Time in the West“ was what convinced him to become a composer himself. „Ennio was an icon,“ he said, „and icons just don’t go away; icons are forever.“
Also paying homage was the metal band Metallica, whose shows often feature their cover of „Ecstasy of Gold,“ from „The Good, the Bad and the Ugly“: „R. I. P. Ennio Morricone, Your career was legendary, your compositions were timeless.“
Click on the video players below to hear samples from some of the composer’s most impressive film scores.
Morricone gained worldwide renown for his scores for Italian director Sergio Leone’s trilogy of „spaghetti westerns“ featuring Clint Eastwood as the „Man With No Name,“ introduced in 1964’s „A Fistful of Dollars“ (a remake of the Kurosawa samurai film, „Yojimbo“). Morricone, who had met Leone briefly in school years earlier, composed some of the music before shooting, an unusual practice that allowed the director to shoot and edit the film to work with the score, not the other way around.
„Leone’s films were made like that because he wanted the music to be an important part of it, and he often kept the scenes longer simply because he didn’t want the music to end,“ Morricone told The Guardian in 2007.

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