This ability to juxtapose different styles came to the fore in "Two Mules for Sister Sarah" where he highlighted both pseudo-serious and lighter comic elements to combine the nun's supposed religious background with the suggestion of a mule's braying and trotting gait (see Humour in Music). It also includes some unusual instrumentation, such as panpipes and banjo. As well as these broad slow themes, "Once upon a Time in America" occasionally breaks out into period dance numbers or Dixieland Jazz. Those instincts could also create a timeless reverential aura for a story spanning generations for "Cinema Paradiso" and the same timeless magic is recreated for "The Untouchables" and "Once upon a Time in America". The composer seemed to have the right musical instincts to emphasise the screen portrayal of legendary, larger than life characters. Then it punctuates the scene like a punch-line when the action is all over in a flash. With its unusual instruments and sound combinations it seems to fill in for the action when the characters are in close-up, eyeing each other and waiting for the first move. Morricone's music stood out on those early Western movies as something quite new and original. His subsequent career brought his music to radio and television as well as the concert hall, before scoring films for the Italian cinema.
He was born in Rome in 1928 and studied trumpet and composition there at the Conservatory of Santa Cecilia, as had Nino Rota previously. If you include "Two Mules for Sister Sara" and "In the Line of Fire" it also seems as though Morricone (like Lalo Schifrin) worked regularly with Clint Eastwood! Although English speaking cinema-goers only became aware of him with the appearance of these westerns, Morricone was an established composer prior to this. With this combination of the Italian background and the tough-guy western, it is perhaps not surprising that the partnership also made some gangster films.
These are a small sample of his partnership with classmate and director Sergio Leone, who produced a large number of films during the 60s and beyond, often released in Italian and then dubbed into English. Morricone is best known for his Spaghetti Western scores, particularly for the "Dollar" series starring Clint Eastwood. Ennio Morricone - not just spaghetti westerns
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