Stuvane: Well done and great choice with Clint. Leone's Spaghetti Westerns were and still are my favorites, The score's my Morriconne, Duel in "For a few Dollars more" and "Ecstasy of Gold" two of the greatest scores of all time. Of course Ecstasy of Gold leads to "The Final duel" in The Good, Bad and Ugly.
Duel: From a Few Dollars More
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JPnR7C8mZQ
Ecstasy of Gold from the Good the Bad and the Ugly
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubVc2MQwMkg
The Final Duel from Good the bad and Ugly
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJCSNIl2Pls
Leone and Morriconne teamed up for Once upon a time in the West as well, while It did not have Clint (young Charles Bronson), it did have Claudia Cardinale!!!
I agree, Palermo Trapani
There are some elements that explain the extraordinary effectiveness of Morricone's music:
1) Meanwhile, the extraordinary partnership between him and Sergio Leone. Perhaps not everyone knows that they knew each other and were friends since childhood, from school years. I think they almost read each other in thought and managed to anticipate their intentions. Having a mutual "feeling" is no small advantage when two heads combine to create something
2) the timing and the perfect synergy between images and music: in these masterpieces often the musical composition is born first (which can and must remain "autonomous"), while it is the images that "comment" the first, not the reverse. This was the case when filming the "Ecstasy of gold" sequence, when Tuco runs spasmodically between the graves of the cemetery in search of the hidden treasure. Leone, his troupe and Eli Wallach created the scene by listening to the relative piece of music that Morricone had already composed. In essence, the composer received only a few basic indications on the scene, but then he had carte blanche in the drafting of the music and Leone adapted the film accordingly. This is one of the reasons that also explain the "dilated" times of the films of Leone, in order to unfold fully the music.
3) Morricone's orchestration and arrangement technique made school, after him nothing was more the same than before. The skilful combination (and deliberate contamination) of "cultured" musical ensembles (symphonic orchestra, piano, organ ... choirs and solo voices, depersonalized, however, used as instruments, with almost metaphysical connotations) with more popular traditions and musical genres or recent or well-defined in an ethnic / exotic sense (classic and flamenco guitars, electric guitars, harmonica, zufoli, ocarinas, recorders, Jew's harps, honky tonk pianos, drums, various percussion instruments, whistles ...) and everything to generate magniloquent or sarcastic and grotesque effects. Obviously the choice is always prudent, nothing is given to chance and Morricone, a pupil of Goffredo Petrassi, and graduated not only in composition, but also in trumpet and band instrumentation, knows how to exploit the corroded tone of the trumpets and brasses to evoke military and violent atmospheres. He also uses the guitar to arouse sensuality, intimacy, anticipation, mystery or wink at the Hispanic-American tradition and the world of vaqueros, forefathers of cow-boys.
4 Last, but not least, the compositional technique. And here we understand that behind it there is a very solid academic music study and a lot of craft. Beyond the ingenious themes conceived, Morricone in his western soundtracks (especially those of the "Dollar Trilogy") takes up some tonal and harmonic elements that would have their roots in the ancient, gregorian and celtic musical tradition, that is, some modal scales , which to the modern and western ear, induce the idea of something suspended, archaic, indefinite. In Spaghetti westerns there are often Doric or Aeolian scales (minor scales at which the sixth degree is raised by a semitone, not the seventh as would be the practice with the minor harmonic scale). Or he omits that degree entirely, transforming it into a minor hexatonic scale. The effect is alienating, grandiose, even a little barbaric, it creates what I call a "Hispanidad" or "conquistadores" atmosphere, a bit Visigothic / Mozarabic.
Where instead the intimate, elegiac dimension imbued with melancholy and nostalgia (the main themes of "Once upon a time in the West" or "Duck, you ******!") Must prevail, Morricone becomes more traditional and classic, closer to the Western cultured music (descending phrases and harmonies that almost accompany the listener by the hand, wise use of the joint degrees in harmonic concatenations as required by organ and choral compositional practices, but also a clever use of the pedal point and / or harmonic revolts, suspensions or retardations, with which the listener is gradually "accustomed" to recognizing the theme that will then develop, or to anticipate it mentally).
A genius, period
