I was surprised to see this thread series that I did in 2010 brought up quite a few times recently. So I thought it would be a good time to see if I am capable of adding a few more.
Morricone found he was in demand by every major Italian film director in the 60s. But before Petri, Argento, Montlado, Verneuil, Bolognini, Pasolini or even Leone used him on a regular basis there was Bernardo Bertolucci. In 1964 Bertoucci’s second film BEFORE THE REVOLUTION gained him notoriety at age 23 being shown at Cannes and the New York Film Festival. At the New York fest a young Martin Scorsese attended and said the movie changed his life. The film ended up as one of his most personal and semi-autobiographical like Truffaut’s 400 BLOWS. It feels like a memory piece. In fact it looked like Bertolucci did not want to color his memories with too much emotion so the music comes in only when a rush of memories elicits a strong emotion, which is why the score is so spare. The cue titles are rather esoteric like “To Dream or not to dream” or “To Live or not to Live” but when they come in they ARE felt. The music is judiciously sculpted to the film so you would never mistake this for one of those scores Morricone handed over to the director saying “here it is, use it as you wish.” Definitely classical in nature from intimate harpsicord to full glorious orchestra, the score, like the film, achieves a level of pure expression that is rare in cinema. Since the whole film was shot in Parma, where Bertolucci was raised, the film is just as much about each location as what happens there. The scene along the Po River and the music is particularly memorable. The tone only shifts dramatically during the erotic scenes where Bertolucci handed that music assignment over to Gato Barbieri, whom he would later use in LAST TANGO IN PARIS.
The credits are a bit confused claiming music by Gino Paoli and Ennio Morricone even though Paoli’s only contribution were the use of two of his hit songs - "Ricordati” and “Vivere ancora”. But Paoli was a famous star and Morricone was literally a nobody at the time. Who knows, Morricone may have been hired BECAUSE he arranged and conducted those two Paoli songs on their original recordings. Even though Morricone was decidedly Bertolucci’s favorite composer over the years scoring 5 of his 15 features, the most critically and commercially successful of these were not scored by Morricone – THE CONFORMIST, LAST TANGO IN PARIS and THE LAST EMPEROR. Indeed if Ennio had scored THE LAST EMPEROR he would have received his first Oscar since that film swept every category including music for Ryuichi Sakamoto, David Byrne and Cong Su.
My last 3 contributions to this series have something in common that I thought someone might pick up on. Morricone’s 450+ scores were all conducted by him or Bruno Nicolai but there were a few exceptions. THE INHERITANCE was conducted by Franco Tamponi and THE MASTER TOUCH by Nicola Samale. And BEFORE THE REVOLUTION was done by the artistic father of all these conductors Franco Ferrara. Ferrara began in the 40s at the start of Neo-realism and became the conductor of choice of nearly every major composer including Nino Rota, Carlo Rustichelli, Enzo Masetti, Alessandro Cicognini and Mario Nascimbene. He even was asked to adapt Shostakovich music for THE CONDEMNED OF ALTONA. So when Ennio got his first major projects he turned to this master to conduct. They were this BEFORE THE REVOLUTION, the big budget cinemascope EL GRECO and John Huston’s THE BIBLE, both Morricone’s tracks and Toshiro Mayuzumi’s full score.
Another wonderfully informative addition to this great ongoing series. Always a pleasure to read and always looking forward to the next one. Thanks for doing this Henry!
Another wonderfully informative addition to this great ongoing series. Always a pleasure to read and always looking forward to the next one. Thanks for doing this Henry!
Agreed - I don’t recall hearing this one before. Amazing to think of the amount of stuff that I have yet to discover after 45 years of being a fan.
In that time when I bought almost anything with his name on (!), this Morricone purchase was one of the first ... the RCA CD, doubled with his score Un Uomo a Metà (1966).
The score got lots of play ... not solely for the lovely music but because, in the main, it has none of those loud dissonant tracks found on many others -my daughter was not a dedicated fan
PRIMA DELLA RIVOLUZIONE is a precursor to two other Morricone scores. The theme in the first track "Prima della rivoluzione" and the second track "...e dopo?" on the CD is in fact the the theme of the song "Un fiore è nato" which he composed one year later for MENAGE ALL´ITALIANA. And some passages in "Tu vedrai" appear again in EL GRECO also just one year later. Besides, PRIMA DELLA RIVOLUZIONE shares some more strong thematic similarities with the later EL GRECO. When listening to it, it always reminds me of that score.
Thanks Stefan for reminding the connection with the later to come MENAGE ALL'ITALIANA. I had completely forgotten about it. However, this tune is present in the eponymous track of PRIMA...and not in ...E dopo?, which is also confirmed on www.chimai.com. Or am I wrong? Regarding the beautiful romantic melody also featured in EL GRECO, I still remember it. This phenomenon occurred on several occasions with RCA stuff such as the main theme from GLI AMANTI D'OLTRE TOMBA later on reused in L'AVVENTURIERO.
Thanks Stefan for reminding the connection with the later to come MENAGE ALL'ITALIANA. I had completely forgotten about it. However, this tune is present in the eponymous track of PRIMA...and not in ...E dopo?, which is also confirmed on www.chimai.com. Or am I wrong?
Yes, you are right, Laurent. I have just checked it on my RCA CD. Instead of in "...e dopo?" it appears again in the third track "Vivere o non vivere" in a harpsichord version.
Thanks Stefan for reminding the connection with the later to come MENAGE ALL'ITALIANA. I had completely forgotten about it. However, this tune is present in the eponymous track of PRIMA...and not in ...E dopo?, which is also confirmed on www.chimai.com. Or am I wrong?
Yes, you are right, Laurent. I have just checked it on my RCA CD. Instead of in "...e dopo?" it appears again in the third track "Vivere o non vivere" in a harpsichord version.
Whenever someone calls me a Morricone expert I point to you guys and quite a few others who are the true aficionados.
You're way too modest Henry! Stefan actually made this parallel right off the top of his head whereas I simply played the CD out of curiosity. So credits go to him for his impressive knowledge. Broadly speaking, it's interesting to see that Morricone rehashed some ideas in those early days. In this respect, he must have been found of his scores to EL GRECO and LA BIBBIA since parts of them have been reused in subsequent soundtracks.
