On November 10, 1928, Ennio Morricone was born. Morricone is the composer of more than 400 film scores and dozens of concert works, and one of the most popular and best-selling film composers of all time.
Morricone began his formal music studies at the National Academy of St. Cecilia at the age of 12, when he embarked on a 4-year program in harmony; he completed it in six months. He continued to study at the conservatory until he was in his mid-20s, earning diplomas in trumpet, arrangement, and composition.
After leaving school, Morricone played in a jazz band and wrote arrangements for the studio bands of several radio stations. He was offered a full-time position by Italian broadcaster RAI, but turned it down when he learned that the company had a rule against performing music composed by its employees. Instead, he went to work for the Italian branch of the RCA Victor record company, working as a writer, producer, and arranger for pop signers. Even an occasional American singer made his way into one of Morricone's sessions, hoping to expand his European audience; Paul Anka recorded Morricone's song "Ogni volta" in 1964.
Morricone began working on film scores in the mid-1950s. At first, he was doing touch-up work and arrangements for scores that had been mostly completed by other composers, work for which he usually didn't get credit. His first full score and film credit came in 1961, for Il Federale (The Fascist).
Between 1964 and 1980, Morricone was a member of the Gruppo di Improvvisazione di Nuova Consonanza, a group of composers/performers who recorded their free-form improvisations. The Group, as they were known, blended elements of classical and avant-garde experimental jazz, and were strongly influential on other European composers' collectives of the era. Their work also influenced Morricone's composition, and The Group can be heard performing on several of his film scores of the 1960s and 1970.
Most Americans first heard of Morricone when he began scoring the spaghetti westerns of director Sergio Leone. A Fistful of Dollars was released in Italy in 1964, followed by For a Few Dollars More in 1965, and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly in 1966. The scores to American westerns were grand orchestral showcases, but Leone and Morricone didn't have the budget to hire a full orchestra. Morricone's scores were built around unorthodox effects and limited instruments—whistling, cracking whips, electric guitars and trumpets. When the Dollars trilogy was released in the United States in 1967, the movies were enormously popular; Hugo Montenegro's version of the theme from The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly became a pop hit in 1968.
The popularity of Morricone's music didn't go unnoticed in Hollywood, and despite his unwillingness to leave Rome, his talent was much in demand. His first American score was for another western, Two Mules for Sister Sara, in 1970. He would receive several Academy Award nominations for his scores, including Days of Heaven, The Mission, The Untouchables, and Bugsy. In 2007, he was awarded an honorary Academy Award for lifetime achievement, only the second composer to be so honored. His most recent Oscar nomination, and first win, came in 2016 for Quentin Tarantino's western/locked-room mystery The Hateful Eight; at the age of 88, Morricone was the oldest person ever to win a competitive Oscar.
Morricone has never devoted himself entirely to film music. He has continued to write concert music; his work includes several concertos, an opera, and a great deal of chamber music. Morricone still works occasionally with pop singers; he co-wrote the song "It Couldn't Happen Here" with the Pet Shop Boys in 1987, and collaborated with Hayley Westenra on her 2011 album Paradiso.
And other musicians have taken the opportunity to pay homage to Morricone's long career. Cellist Yo-Yo Ma recorded an album of Morricone's music in 2004; the 2007 album We All Love Ennio Morricone features performances by Celine Dion, Herbie Hancock, Metallica, and Bruce Springsteen.
Morricone continues to work on new projects; his most recent film score, for an Edith Stein biography, called A Rose in Winter, is expected to be released sometime in 2019.
Much more of Morricone's music is available for streaming at Hoopla and Freegal, or on CD. Morricone's own thoughts on film composing are collected in Composing for the Cinema (e-book | print).