Artist................... Ennio Morricone
Album.....................Guardians of the Clouds
Label.....................Universal
Genre.....................Classical
Release...................06/25/2006
Street....................xx/xx/2006
Encoder...................LAME 3.97 beta
Quality...................--aps 44.1kHz/joint
# NAME TiME
01. Gabriel's Oboe (from the Mission) 06:12
02. La Tragedia Di Un Uomo Ridicolo 03:25
03. Mercato 02:38
04. Liricamente 03:57
05. I Gelsomini 04:08
06. Antiga Palavra (with Dulce Pontes) 04:52
07. C' Era Una Volta Il Trenino 03:27
08. La Commozione Dell' Addio 03:50
09. I Figli Di Pan 04:32
10. Family of the Poor 02:17
(from City of Joy)
11. Guardians of the Clouds 03:56
12. Teneramente Amore 03:38
13. Liricamente (Solo) 01:54
Ennio Morricone is probably the most famous film
composer of the 20th century. He is also one of the
most prolific composers working in any medium. No exact
figure is available, but he's scored several hundred
films over the past several decades, perhaps as many as
500. While these have been in almost every imaginable
musical style (and for almost every imaginable kind of
movie), he is most identified with the "spaghetti
Western" style of soundtracks, which he pioneered when
providing the musical backdrop for the films of
director Sergio Leone. Morricone's palette is
extraordinarily diverse, drawing from classical, jazz,
pop, rock, electronic, avant-garde, and Italian music,
among other styles. Esteemed by such important figures
in modern music as John Zorn (not to mention
contemporary directors like Martin Scorsese), he is
increasingly placed among not just the finest
soundtrack composers, but the most important
contemporary composers of any sort.
Morricone began studying music at Rome's Conservatory
of Santa Cecilia at the age of 12. Urged to concentrate
on composition by his instructors, he supported himself
by playing trumpet in jazz bands, and then worked for
Italy's national radio network after graduating from
the conservatory. He didn't begin scoring films until
the early '60s, and didn't begin attracting
international notice until he began collaborating with
Leone, starting with A Fistful of Dollars in the
mid-'60s. (Morricone had previously worked on other
Italian Westerns with other directors.)
The spaghetti Westerns only comprised a phase of
Morricone's career, but for many his work in this field
remains his best and most innovative. Morricone
amplified the film's plots and drama through ingenious
use of diverse arrangements and instrumentation. Jew's
harps, dissonant harmonicas, dancing piccolos,
bombastic church organs, eerie whistling, thundering
trumpets, oddly sung gunfighter ballads, and ghostly
vocal choruses -- all became trademarks of the
Morricone-Leone productions, then of the spaghetti
Western genre as a whole. The influence of rock & roll
was felt in the low, ominous twanging guitars, which
reflected (intentionally or unintentionally) the sound
of contemporary recordings by the Ventures, Duane Eddy,
the Shadows, and John Barry. Morricone's most famous
composition, the theme to The Good, the Bad and the
Ugly, made number two in the U.S. when it was covered
by Hugo Montenegro.
Even while he was busy with collaborations with Leone,
Morricone found time for various other film projects,
such as the agitprop classic Battle of Algiers and
Burn! By the 1970s, Morricone was winding down his
involvement with both Leone and the spaghetti Western,
working with numerous other directors all over the
world. Grand orchestration and memorable motifs were
commonplace in Morricone's work; Warren Beatty, for
instance, once told the Los Angeles Times that "there's
nobody better than Ennio to create a haunting theme."
His scores also began to utilize more contemporary
electronic influences, with mixed results.
Age has not slowed Morricone in the least. In fact, the
1980s, '90s, and 2000s saw his commercial success and
widespread recognition at an all-time peak. He garnered
several Academy Award nominations for The Mission in
1986. Since then he's worked for such top directors as
Pedro Almodovar, Brian DePalma, Roman Polanski, Mike
Nichols, Oliver Stone, and Barry Levinson. Cinema
Paradiso is probably the most renowned of his recent
scores.
With such an abundance of recordings, collecting
Morricone remains a daunting proposition. It's doubtful
that anyone will collect all of his soundtracks under
one roof; after all, the composer himself doesn't even
remember how many films he's worked on. RCA's The
Legendary Italian Westerns, Virgin's two Film Music
volumes, and Rhino's Anthology are useful collections,
and the DRG label has reissued other noteworthy
compilations of his work.
We use LAME 3.97 now, which is approved.
48:46 min
61,7 Mb