IL MAESTRO E MARGHERITA The Master and Margaret Slavic Morricone # 7
I've spent two days on why I should not include this score here. But ultimately I have tossed it in. After all, this list isn't a top ten greatest scores. It is a contrasting series of Morricone scores that show what a wide range of music he has done over his career, excluding the ones he did in America and England. This has got to be one of his strangest assignments(although by it's title "I marziani hanno dodici mani" THE TWELVE-ARMED MEN OF MARS should win that one). IL MAESTRO E MARGHERITA is a film Aleksandar Petrovic directed soon after his international hit I EVEN MET HAPPY GYPSIES. It is based on the controversial and hard-to-film novel by Mikhail A. Bulgakov and was ultimately banned is his native former Yugoslavia. The film had a score by a Yugoslav composer that still survives in bits and pieces in the film. But because it was an Italian co-production Ennio Morricone was brought in to compose what amounts to the romantic scenes plus the main and end titles. This all comprises ONE theme. It was one of over 20 films Morricone is credited with scoring in 1972. So is it even a score? Well mine is not to judge what should have been composed, but what WAS done. So if you can call Clint Eastwood tinkling on the piano a score (and I do, but a not so hot one) then this certainly qualifies as one. But how do you assess the same theme 11 times? Isn't this exactly what the worst criticisms about Morricone, that he is monothematic without variation? But this is the part I found interesting. The cuts vary from 1:12 to 4:20 and so do parts of the orchestrations. No. 1 has a simple piano lead-in. No. 2 has special emphasis on Edda Dell' Orso's vocal, No. 3 opens more dramatically and has a very tender woodwind feel to it, No. 5 opens with a sustained eerie organ, 7 has a quicker pace and a tentative feel, 8 ends up more ethnic. 9 is the slowest and the most unsettling with shimmering strings. Really listening to this I found this was not a lazy work like it hit me at first. I became as fascinated with the shifting orchestrations as I was in the way the REVOLVER long cut varied all the way through. The score grew richer with each hearing.
Finding decent sound renditions of the film was hard too here is the best I could do:
One thing cannot be denied. That theme is a beaut. As an aside this is the third film in this series that starred Ugo Tognazzi. With that I couldn't help but notice he scored more than twelve films with the actor including Ennio's very first scoring assignment IL FEDERALE.
Henry I have been searching for this score for a long time. managed to get the shorter version though and I love it very much indeed. Notice the striking similarity to some of the tracks on TRE NEL MILLE
I didn't know it was so much in demand, considering it came out in 2008. I'm sorry for your plight but glad this score has a following. It's gotta show up somewhere.
Love this score, I'd always liked the theme so I bought the GDM cd.
It is a "one theme" album, BUT, it's one of the most beautiful themes EM has written and all the subtle differences in the various tracks make for an overall excellent listening experience.
IL MAESTRO E MARGHERITA is certainly one of my all-time EM favourites - and yet another EM scored film I haven't seen.
I first came across the theme (IV variante) on that wonderful double LP compilation Un Film, Una Musica and have owned the four track score (partnered with Per le Antiche Scale) for many years. I did try to buy the GDM release a year or two ago but missed the opportunity ... I think it was a limited release.
The theme is re-used on the score to Il Barone ... being direct lifts rather than re-recordings/re-arrangements.
The latest GDM release for the score, as well as Digitmovies' "Addio Fratello Crudele" are rare examples of recent Morricone reissues that went oop in no time. (my loss)
The latest GDM release for the score, as well as Digitmovies' "Addio Fratello Crudele" are rare examples of recent Morricone reissues that went oop in no time. (my loss)
Morrifan have you got a contact email noticed a copy of the Digit cd for sale recently.
There is such emotion in Il Maestro E Margherita a sad feeling and a sort of comforting feeling at the same time, I too think it is one of his most beautiful scores.
IL MAESTRO E MARGHERITA is certainly one of my all-time EM favourites - and yet another EM scored film I haven't seen.
I first came across the theme (IV variante) on that wonderful double LP compilation Un Film, Una Musica and have owned the four track score (partnered with Per le Antiche Scale) for many years. I did try to buy the GDM release a year or two ago but missed the opportunity ... I think it was a limited release.
The theme is re-used on the score to Il Barone ... being direct lifts rather than re-recordings/re-arrangements.
A beautiful theme. It also shares much of its DNA with Goldsmith's main theme to Ransom (1975).
Another winner for both Morricone and, er, Morricone.
Since this thread I’ve discovered the book and have read it three times in I think four years. I was expecting a dry recounting of pre-revolutionary family life, a perhaps elegant dynastic tale of love and betrayal with long Russian names it would be hard to remember. Ennio’s theme, to be fair, didn’t discourage this image with its gorgeousness. However, I bought it to go on holiday and was determined to get to the end.
I needn’t have worried. It’s actually a fast-paced blackly comedic suggestion of events should the devil appear in Moscow with a retinue for some harmful mischief. Running in parallel is a beautifully realised narrative of Pilate’s part in the death of Jesus, and the two strands co-exist until they both reach stunning conclusions. I haven’t seen the film - would like to, if only to see if my concept of the characters matches the film-makers, but you could imagine parts of it scored with Morriconian tarantella and passages from Exorcist II.
IL MAESTRO E MARGHERITA is certainly one of my all-time EM favourites - and yet another EM scored film I haven't seen..
Well Mitch, you may have corrected that since your post but if not...try this. Wonderful beginning of church bells before it goes into the famous theme
managed to get the shorter version though and I love it very much indeed.
