Ennio Morricone In His Own Words

 
Absolute Applications

Ennio Morricone In His Own Words
by Ennio Morricone and Alessandro De Rosa
Oxford University Press ISBN: 9780190681012

Just a brief review of a very valuable book in the annals of musical history, which I’m sure I won’t do anything like full justice to but, I hope it will give interested parties enough of a flavour to pursue this magnificent tome themselves.

I’ve been lucky enough to see Ennio Morricone conduct concerts of his works in London around five or six times in my life. They are always a treasured experience and each time I attended it just compelled me to re-explore his back catalogue of music. Alas, the great man died back in July so I won’t again have the pleasure of seeing him live ever again but, I guess I knew that anyway as his last concert tour, from a few years ago, was pretty much promoted as his farewell set of concerts.

This manuscript, Ennio Morricone In His Own words, a 2019 English translation of a 2016 book, is a wonderful exploration of the composer which is a transcription of conversations taking place between Morricone and a young composer/freelance musician named Alessandro De Rosa.

Now, I usually find “In their own words” style books to be either just a tonne of bite sized quotes organised under theme or as much about the author compiling things as it is about the subject. I’m delighted to say that neither case is true in relation to this tome. These are genuinely long transcriptions of conversations between the two men with De Rosa deliberately taking the back seat and asking the right kind of provocative questions to allow Morricone to do the lion’s share of the book... often while the two are playing chess. That’s something I learned from this book for a start... Morricone was a keen and evidently excellent chess player, even subscribing to several magazines and playing in the odd tournament. He mentions very early on in the book (possibly even on the first page) that he sees strong links between music and chess notation.

Now I’ve always found this amazing composer to be somewhat arrogant when I’ve read quotations by him in various programmes or articles over the years but, this book firmly dispels that idea (along with a lot of others). Rather than being arrogant, I gather that Morricone is merely shy (as am I and that’s often perceived as a certain aloofness in other people, although a certain ‘special’ lady friend of mine would not recognise that trait in me, for sure) and genuinely honest about himself and this can sometimes come across as an unfortunate attitude when taken out of context. Which is another reason why this book is so good. I realise that Morricone was a thoughtful man and although, as I said, honest... I sense a reluctance to tackle certain issues due to his respect for the wishes and beliefs of others.

And I learned some really interesting stuff such as, despite often being perceived as not finding value in his work with the great Sergio Leone, he regarded that relationship as very special and cherished their continual friendship both on and off the job. There’s a heartbreaking anecdote in here about when and how he heard that Leone was dead, when they were due to meet up again very soon.

One thing which I’ve been trying to find out for years was just what was the great rift, often alluded to on most writing about his work, that occurred between him and Bruno Nicolai (who made up quite a good team of composers, conducting each others works and also collaborating on compositions in Morricone’s early years). It turns out, if Morricone is to be believed and I’ve no reason not to, that Nicolai was a great friend and they didn’t have any kind of falling out at all, just decided to part ways to retain their own individual styles... or at least retain the public perception of it (if I am understanding correctly). Morricone goes on record that he misses him (Nicolai died in 1991 but he did some remarkable scores in his time).

And, of course, he talks a lot about music. The inspiration, the experimentation and the difference between what he calls applied music (music created to serve another medium such as film, theatre, ballet etc) and what he calls ‘absolute music’, which is technically free of the bounds of certain rules (and equally the special creativity which comes as part and parcel of those restrictions, I would say). I am very glad to see that he doesn’t (like many critics seem to adhere to, as a belief about music they don’t understand or get on with in the arena of film) see his applied music really as any way of lesser value than his other stuff. Indeed, his thorough experimentation with music as heard in both styles of composition and the fact that he imposes his own limits in his writing for both forms anyway, certainly shows the similarity of the DNA in terms of the fact that he was always writing for an audience... even if that audience was himself.

And, yeah, not too much more to say about Ennio Morricone In His Own Words. I said up front that this would be a brief review but the quality and thoroughness of the events, details and periods explored in these conversations is so rich and varied that, frankly, this is the closest thing you can get to a genuine autobiography by the man, I believe. As such, it’s a valuable addition to anybody interested in film music and, towards the end where the conversations get quite technical in terms of the art (it kinda lost me a little in the last fifth of the book because I have no musical training), I think it’s also has a lot of value for modern composers in relation to where Morricone’s own experiments with music took him. This one gets a big, solid recommendation from me and I was certainly as enlightened by the contents as I was entertained. A true window into the mind of one of the greatest composers of the 20th/21st century.