The Power, Beauty, and Majesty of Ennio Morricone’s Music

Morricone’s music creates feeling in a way few other composers in history rival.

If you ask people who their favorite composer is, many will answer Mozart, Bach, or Beethoven.

For me, it’s a tie between Basil Poledouris (1945-2006) and Ennio Morricone (1928-2020). The fact that both of these men were walking the earth until relatively recently and writing scores for movies doesn’t automatically relegate them behind the great classical composers, at least not in my mind.

In fact, I believe that humans 300 years from now will be listening to Poledouris and Morricone much like we do Mozart and company today.

Many readers may not even realize that Morricone is no longer with us.

He died in 2020 when the world was in the middle of the Great Covid-19 Panic, just a handful of years after writing one of his better works, the score for Quentin Tarantino’s (overlooked) masterpiece The Hateful Eight.

The Italian composer’s music will sound familiar to film fans.

Morricone wrote scores for more than 500 movies during his lifetime, but he’s best known for the spaghetti Western films shot by Sergio Leone, the legendary Italian director who pioneered the genre in the 1960s.

As a kid, I watched over and over the Dollars Trilogy—A Fistful of Dollars (1964), For a Few Dollars More (1965), and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)—that made Clint Eastwood a star, as well as Leone works like Once Upon a Time in the West and My Name is Nobody (both of which starred Henry Fonda).

Morricone wrote the scores for all of them; and as more and more years go by, the more I find his music touches my soul.

When I work, I often listen to a collection of his Western scores on YouTube (below), and the music does something to me. Any frustration, anxiety, or pain I’m feeling slowly drips off me. The music pulls me somewhere else, where the problem I’m facing feels smaller and more trivial.

Nothing has the power to do this quite like music and books, at least for me. Workouts and walks help, but music and books are even more effective at removing me from myself.

Not all music has this power, of course, but Morricone’s does, and not just for me.

One day not long ago, when I found myself transported by Morricone’s music, I read comments from other readers. They described my feelings better than I could.

“The emotions this [man’s] music can generate in me is astonishing,” one wrote.

“When you speak these two names, Ennio Morricone and Sergio Leone, You speak the names of masters of their respective crafts. This music is just so incredible and it was used to enhance the movie experience so much. I can listen to this incredible music nonstop. It is indeed the greatest western music of all time,” another said.

“Ennio Morricone will forever be remembered as the man who gave the West a sound,” wrote another.

Morricone’s music creates feeling in a way few other composers in history rival, but the fact that his music was tied to film adds another element.

As I listened to his music, I couldn’t help but notice how many users talked about watching Leone films with their fathers as children, and how the music today transports them back in time.

“My dad died the 1st of Oct 2017, listening to this reminds me of the late nights I'd wake up, come down for a glass of water or just to stretch the legs a moment before going to bed again, he'd nearly always watch western movies and sometimes I'd join him watch a movie to the end before going to bed again, sometimes talk with him. I miss him! Miss him so much, the old fool!”

“My father, who still lives, introduced these movies to me as a child and I am forever grateful! Every time I sit down to watch one always brings me back to my childhood with my father. I am now 55 yrs old.”

“I lost my dad 2 years ago....I played ecstasy of gold at his funeral...I grew up with these films with my dad......the music is absolutely stunning....nothing compares to it....and also brings me close to my dad even though he has gone”

My dad is still with me, thankfully. But I understand the feeling they describe nevertheless.

And I imagine one day as an old man I will listen to “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly” score and hear that piano, chorus, and beautiful wailing Soprano voice, and my mind will conjure up images of tumbleweeds blowing over a vast desert, trains racing across the plains, and the Man With No Name smoking a cheroot. And I’ll remember sitting on my own dad’s lap watching Sergio Leone movies.

And I think it’s because of the power of Ennio Morricone’s music.

Bonus: Listen to the Danish National Symphony Orchestra’s live 2018 performance of Morricone’s “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” below. It will make you weep.