Ennio Morricone

xl70e3

xl70e3

Skywalker
Just came from the concert. Single 2 hour performance, 6 thousand persons concert hall, $100-300+ ticket price. Leone's dollar trilogy, Once upon a time in America, Professional, Bugsy, Richard III and many other scores were all there. But as much as I appreciate the maestro doing the whole thing (it's not often that you see film composers give concerts, I can only remember Howard Shore with his Rivendell show recently) and as much as I respect his work, his music is just not meant to be listened apart from the great movies that it was written for. Except for a few most well known themes, it just doesn't work, when you listen to it like this, without a picture in front of your eyes. Still, I enjoyed the show for the most part. This is something I'll always remember, something to tell people about.
 
xl70e3 said:
$100-300+ ticket price.
Click to expand...

I would have paid that in a heartbeat! I'm jealous!

xl70e3 said:
his music is just not meant to be listened apart from the great movies that it was written for. Except for a few most well known themes, it just doesn't work, when you listen to it like this, without a picture in front of your eyes.
Click to expand...

For the most part I agree -- but Morricone has such an incredibly extensive body of work that I think you could easily fill the concert time with fantastic stuff that would work without an image. I tend to prefer his more recent (1980's and forward) work for pure listening pleasure.

My top "must have" selections for this concert would have been selections from "The Mission" (Gabriel's Oboe, Ave Maria, The River), "Legend of 1900" (Playing Love, Mozart Reincarnated, The Crisis), and of course "Cinema Paradiso" (several great cues from this score!).

A great CD for Morricone fans is the Yo-Yo Ma one: Yo-Yo Plays Ennio

Where was this concert? If it's a one time only event, did you notice any cameras etc. hinting at a possible future DVD release?
 
It was here, in Moscow, Owen. I think he was invited to do this during last year's cinema awards Golden Eagle, where he got a prize for his score for a russian submarine movie K-something... So, yeah it was a one time only event. They did have several broadcast cameras there, that were being projected on the big screen on the scene. But I don't know if they're planning to make a dvd or anything like that.
The thing is that his choice of music was sorta weird. I agree he could pick 20 themes from, for example, his golden collection and that'd make wonderful and enjoyable 2 hours. Instead, the middle part of the show was filled with an underscore stuff, that I could hardly even recognize. Music, that's just not meant to be listened to on it's own. But he is a genius, a living legend and I guess he just plays what he wants to.
 
For me, the most memorable score he ever did was "The Good, The Bad and the Ugly" starring Clint Eastwood. One of the best westerns ever even if it was a "spaghetti" western. I went out and got the soundtrack on cassette years ago and I rarely ever buy soundtracks. The theme song has been ripped off a hundred times in other movies, comedy sketches, etc.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top