Who is credited with composing first original film score?

John Williams?

NOT BY A LONG SHOT

Ennio Morricone

...is the answer to that one. A Hollywood contender would be Victor Young

but he worked within studio music departments, stuffed with orchestrators.

ENNIO MORRICONE writes every note of his own music directly onto a full

score, without benefit of computer software and without tinkling at a piano.

The "Grande Maestro", meaning 'Great Master' - as Quincy Jones called him -

refuses to work for American cinema, very understandably, given the shocking

treatment of his scores there by music editors; if not hacking the pieces, then

rendering them almost inaudible.

Morricone has composed not only for Italian and American films, but also for

British, French, German, Spanish, Yugoslav, Hungarian, Russian and Japanese

productions.

He is not valued more highly by aficionados of film music simply because much

of his best work has been for obscure films or domestic television. He says: "I

always do my best."

Morricone has done things with the human voice (which he regards as the

greatest musical instrument) which have not even been contemplated in

Hollywood. Even the best of them there need a professional orchestrator just

to do rudimentary choral backings. His love of the avant-garde he has brought

into film many times, including instances where a group of musicians (including

himself on Trumpet) have been permitted to simply 'improvise' to the images.

This would be unimaginable in hackneyed Hollywood, where the norm is to

start with the form of the symphony orchestra. Morricone never starts with The

Form; always with The Idea.

His facility with melody ~ only John Barry and Francis Lai can hope for comparison.

His understanding of the history of music, coming in part from his many years of

study at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia - named after the patron saint

of Music and founded in 1585 - have equipped the fast-working composer to create

a body of works which include 'El Greco' (1966), 'Giordano Bruno' (1973),

'Allonsanfan' (1974), 'Novecento' (1976), 'La Storia Vera DELLa Signora DELLe Camilie'

(1981), 'Marco Polo' (1982), 'The Mission' (1986), 'Canone Inverso' (1999), 'Vatel'

(2000) and 'E Ridendo L'Uccise' (2004) which no other composer in any field of

music could hope to emulate. This composer's range goes from soft-porn to global

awareness documentary. Morricone is utterly without peer.

In recent years, he has been very discerning, with no interest in big stars or

directors, "box office success", blockbusters or big budget hype. When not

composing his own music (there are now well over 100 concert pieces) or

touring his native Italy (and all over the world) to conduct a small flavour of his

film works, the composer tends to restrict himself to cinema and TV which is

about something meaningful, whether the life of a Pope or the young diarist

Anne Frank.

On the subject of his perhaps too many concerts, one or two critics have commented

sourly on Morricone as a conductor. The Grande Maestro has riposted, "People who

come for my gestures should stay outside."

Perhaps those critics have been overexposed to 'celebrity' conductors who pull faces

and flail arms over great music not a page of which they could write, the feeling-

superior audiences not of course seeing the tantrums, the tyranny and the humiliation

of musicians in the rehearsal rooms.

Ennio Morricone and his wife Maria Travia (who has written many lyrics to his songs,

including the Latin texts for 'The Mission') attended the showing in Rome of Quentin

Tarantino's rewrite of the Second World War, 'Inglorious Basterds'. Tarantino had

wanted very badly Morricone to score his film, but the composer was dedicated to

Tornatore's epic 'Baarìa' and refused (among many others) one of the world's most

notorious (and stylish) directors.

The rumour-mill claims Tarantino wants to make a western. And since Morricone

has at least gone to view 'Inglorious Basterds', I would not give up hope, Quentin