“Oscar winner Ennio Morricone, composer of ‘The Good, the Bad and the Ugly’ and ‘The Mission’ and among the most prolific and admired composers in film history, has died. He was 91,” writes Jon Burlingame in Monday’s (6/6) Variety. “Morricone died early Monday in a Rome clinic, where he was taken shortly after suffering a fall.… The Italian maestro’s estimated 500 scores for films and television, composed over more than 50 years, are believed to constitute a record in Western cinema.… At least a dozen of them became film-score classics, from … ‘The Good, the Bad and the Ugly’ and ‘Once Upon a Time in the West’ to the widely acclaimed ‘The Mission’ and ‘Cinema Paradiso’ of the 1980s.” Morricone won three Oscars and in 2006 was presented an honorary Oscar. “He was classically trained and insisted upon personally orchestrating every note of his scores, unlike many of his contemporaries…. Morricone devoted more time in later years to classical composition, writing more than 50 works for chamber groups, symphony orchestra, solo voice and choral ensembles…. Morricone was born in Rome. He took up the trumpet at an early age and studied music at Italy’s famed Santa Cecilia conservatory.… Morricone is survived by wife, Maria Travia, and their four children.”
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