CANONE INVERSO Making Love Great Italian Morricone scores #4
This series is inspired by a controversy thread where someone posited the idea that besides THE MISSION and some Sergio Leone westerns Ennio Morricone hasn't written anything great. Rather than making my usual comment that most of Morricone's great scores are from Italy and trying to get Americans to listen to them is like getting them to see movies with subtitles, I decided to take another tact. Since I am at an age where I will only be able to make my case a finite number of times I decided to turn this into a series presenting each great score one at a time, sort of like recordman.
Great composers need more inspiration as they get older to get it up so to speak. CANONE INVERSO obviously plugged into Morricone's days at the consevatory where he spent a lot of his early life. It is inspired. And the centerpiece "Concert Romantico Interrotto" is the greatest concocted "classical" piece since Zbigniew Preisner used to do them under the name Van den Budenmayer for those Kieslowski films. It is the piece that inspires the young violinist (Hans Matheson), along with the gorgeous Melanie Theirry, to enter college and develop his skills in Prague in 1939. But they are both Jewish and artists so things will not go well for them very soon. But there is a lot more to the story and to the music. The first time I played this soundtrack I thought it was mainly classical adaptations. There are 3 of them, a Bach, Paganini and Dvorak, plus Morricone doing a Debussy spin-off, but the other 17 cues are pure Morricone. Starting with the "Canone Inverso", a piece that can be played forward or backwards,"like a memory". The Tema D'amore is his usual moving-as-ever love theme. The energetic pieces like "Goliardi E Sport" and "Corsa" seem to be coming from some young composer. No less than 4 violinists do the honors here. Mainly Franco Tamponi (a composer himself) and Gabriele Pieranunzi, but also Riccardo and Ettore Pellegrino. Almost all the cuts are melodic and gorgeous. I was going to play a dramatic scene but, hell, the big concert, as the Nazis move in, is dramatic in spades:
The film has the problems connected with a Italian director doing an English language film. It is also a story within a story within a story. Garriel Byrne is the wraparound character and narrator But the overall effect is powerful and that has a lot to do with Morricone. A late life masterpiece.
Ennio Morricone won the David di Donatello Award (the Italian Oscar) for best score for this film in 2000. This was the third film done with director Ricky Tognazzi (son of actor Ugo).
Thanks for posting that clip. I'd never seen it before, but was lucky enough to stumble upon this CD I think around the time it was released and yes that piece instantly became a favorite.
I'm still largely ignorant though of many of Morricone's works, so I'm looking forward to future recommendations.
Thanks for posting that clip. I'd never seen it before, but was lucky enough to stumble upon this CD I think around the time it was released and yes that piece instantly became a favorite.
I'm still largely ignorant though of many of Morricone's works, so I'm looking forward to future recommendations.
And happy new year!
This was so cool! Happy New Year from the other side of the world!
This was one of many EM scores I bought blind; it proves it's worthwhile doing so as it is another EM-scored film I've not seen and do not imagine me having the chance to see.
It has some beautiful melodies/cues and gets played far more than the average. And yet, the suite included on M. Morricone's Arena Concerto album does virtually nothing for me.
Mmmm, perhaps I should give said suite a play independently of the whole album - will do when NP: Indagine Su Un Cittadino Al Di Sopra Di Ogni Sospetto finishes ...
Ok you have convinced me as he hits checkout over on Amazon ,there is no denying the beauty and the skill of the musicians that are featured in that clip.Still I'm not a fan of his music from the first clip where he is just overdoing it in his classical attempts,maybe he is just over thinking or something when he is doing his classical mode.
Ok you have convinced me as he hits checkout over on Amazon ,there is no denying the beauty and the skill of the musicians that are featured in that clip.Still I'm not a fan of his music from the first clip where he is just overdoing it in his classical attempts,maybe he is just over thinking or something when he is doing his classical mode.
Perhaps you should get to know it first. It's really an extraordinary piece when you know it well.
Really enjoyed the music in your final clip feel it will be worth it for that alone and will see if I can endure the rest when it turns up. Found he has been inspirational in almost ever style of music that he has composed,sure he might still have it in him yet to do something that is truly inspirational in classical music, where he seems to be at these days.
One can easily notice how much Morricone invested in writing this score, which could almost come from a Tornatore film. The CD is quite varied and the Concerto is a keeper. Even though the composer's output has been (understandably) decreasing over the last decade, not only in quantity but also (arguably) in quality, when he's on fire he burns the house down.
Like Mission to Mars, this score is one the few that doesn't do any for me. Having just played it after a number of years, it still left me cold.
It doesn’t make you wrong. And the fact that I played Mission to Mars last week for the first time in years and loved it doesn’t make me wrong either. But we should all be grateful that you’ve resurrected this thread.
Like Mission to Mars, this score is one the few that doesn't do anything for me. Having just played it after a number of years, it still left me cold.
It doesn’t make you wrong. And the fact that I played Mission to Mars last week for the first time in years and loved it doesn’t make me wrong either. But we should all be grateful that you’ve resurrected this thread.
I might give Mission to Mars another spin and see if my view has changed!
