Once Upon a Time in America? Once Upon a Time in the West? On 6 February, Kraków hosts Ennio Morricone and his great film music.
His international career started with a collaboration with an old school friend – the director Sergio Leone. His soundtracks to the Dollars Trilogy of westerns from 1964-1966 (For a Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, the latter with a distinctive five-note motif recalling the howl of a coyote) – with Ennio Morricone incorporating electric guitars, mouth harps, background noises and whistling – revolutionised our thinking about film music, and they remain a trademark of both the films and the composer himself.
In total, Morricone has composed music to over 500 cinematic and TV productions, with over 70 million copies of his soundtracks sold around the globe. He is the only composer to have been awarded an Academy Award for lifetime achievement (2007) and in 2016 he received an Oscar statuette in open competition as well: for the soundtrack to Quentin Tarantino's The Hateful Eight. He has worked with directors including Brian De Palma (The Untouchables), Barry Levinson (Disclosure), Roland Joffé (The Mission), Oliver Stone (U Turn) and Giuseppe Tornatore (Cinema Paradiso), each time creating a unique, memorable score matching perfectly the atmosphere of the film.
Which is your favourite – the unsettling, somewhat discordant jazz sounds sketching a portrait of prohibition-era America in The Untouchables? Or perhaps the nostalgic motif from Cinema Paradiso recalling bitter-sweet memories of childhood? Do you prefer bangs of a revolver, cracking whips, train whistles, chirping birds and church bells intertwined with the soundtrack to Once Upon a Time in the West, or perhaps the theme from The Mission – classical sounds of oboe with harpsichord and strings in the background, giving way to pan’s pipes and world music sounds?
Fortunately, there’s no need to choose: on 6 February at the Kraków Arena, during a concert forming a part of Ennio Morricone’s The 60 Years of Music Tour, we will hear them all! Maestro Morricone takes the pulpit to conduct soloists, choir and the Czech National Symphonic Orchestra – a total of almost 200 performers! (Barbara Skowrońska)
