Rome to pay 24-hour tribute to Ennio Morricone

Rome will fill its metro stations with the music of Oscar-winning Italian composer Ennio Morricone, in a 24-hour tribute to the man known as ‘the Maestro’, who died earlier this month (July), according to the city’s mayor Virgina Raggi. A date for the musical marathon has yet to be announced.

Tributes have been pouring in for the man whose haunting, atmospheric scores made him one of the most versatile and influential composers of music for the cinema.

‘I’ll never forget the way Ennio Morricone described music as ‘energy, space and time’, said cellist Yo-Yo Ma. ‘It is perhaps the most concise and accurate description I’ve ever heard. We’ll truly miss him.’

Or, as pianist and composer Juan Fermín Ferraris put it: ‘Sometimes, there are people who say everything with a melody. Nothing more.’

He will probably best be remembered for the scores he wrote for spaghetti westerns in the 1960s, notably for the Dollars trilogy directed by his childhood friend Sergio Leone and which starred Clint Eastwood. His unique blend of guitars, whistling, gunshots and violins mimicking cantering horses has come to define the genre.

Morricone often said that his personal challenge was ‘to ensure that the music can stand autonomously, that it conveys my mindset, and that at the same time enhances the director’s visual ideas’.

He was born in Rome in 1928 and started to play the trumpet, writing his first composition aged just six. He studied classical music and went on to write scores for theatre and radio. He was later hired as an arranger by the label RCA.

Quentin Tarantino was just one director in recent years who hired Morricone to work on a number of film scores, including his western The Hateful Eight, which netted the composer his first Oscar in addition to his lifetime achievement award. Morricone also wrote music for other Tarantino films, including Django Unchained and Kill Bill.