Ennio Morricone (1928-2020)
Cinema Rarities
Orchestra di Padova e del Veneto/Marco Serino (violin)
rec. 2023, Oratorio di San Rocco, Padua, Italy
Arcana A554 [56]
Earlier this year, I saw a quite exceptional film-length documentary on the life and music of Ennio Morricone, so when this recording appeared, it was an obvious choice to review. It became even more relevant last week, when I attended a concert of music by John Williams, with a substantial proportion of the program being arrangements for violin and orchestra (by Williams) of excerpts from his film scores (with Anne-Sophie Mutter as soloist). This new Arcana disc is cut from the same cloth, and follows on from a 2022 release in the same vein (Cinema Suites, A495), which I haven’t heard. The main difference is that this new release, as indicated by its title, delves more deeply into Morricone’s oeuvre. Not all the arrangements are by Morricone himself; a few are by violinist Marco Serino.
Of the movies included here, Once Upon a Time in the West is the only one with which I have any familiarity. Morricone did, after all, write more than four hundred scores, the majority for films that would not have gone far beyond the borders of Italy. But the purpose of the recording is to give the music a life beyond the silver screen, so for me, the storylines of each film are not especially important in considering the musical qualities.
The majority of the music is slow or slowish, and bathed in Italian sunshine. It overflows with melody, some bittersweet, some just sweet, and that is both a good and bad thing: good in that at almost any point in the fifty-six minutes, you will encounter glorious tunes, bad in that it leads to a lack of contrast and variety. This is, in part, due to the scoring – violin solo and string orchestra (plus the occasional addition of keyboard) – as well as the music chosen. The writing for the violin does generally fit in seamlessly with the music, unlike the Williams pieces where I felt the solos there seemed to be shoehorned in, simply to provide virtuosic and showy writing for Mutter.
I don’t intend to discuss individual works. However, I will say that the arrangement of Man with a Harmonica (from Once Upon a Time in the West) so that it becomes Man with a Violin isn’t a success. All the desolation of the original is lost in lush romanticism (I wasn’t surprised to see that this is not one of Morricone’s arrangements). If you do want to try before you buy, might I suggest the quite lovely Love Remembered (from the Mauro Bolognini Suite – track 5). As with the earlier release, music written for particular directors has been put into “suites” (often comprising just two movements).
I cannot fault the performances: Marco Serino’s tone is rich and rounded as befits the music, and the orchestra provides the necessary lushness. The sound quality is good, without being outstanding. The booklet notes consist of a five-page interview with Marco Serino, and provide a good insight into the music. There is one relatively trivial, but still annoying aspect: the full tracklist, showing the film origin of each of the seventeen movements, is not found at the start of the booklet as is usual, but is on page 24 (of 31). Why?
I am glad I had the opportunity to hear this and to have it in my collection, though I can’t honestly say that my attention was focussed solely on the music for the entire time because of the similarity of atmosphere that pervades it. However, I could not escape the feeling (one only reinforced by the Williams concert) that the original versions of the music, sans violin, were likely to have been a better listening option.
David Barker
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Contents
La califfa
Mauro Bolognini Suite
Quattro Adagi
Le Clan des Siciliens
Quasi un Vivaldi
Taviani Brothers Suite
Silvano Agosti Suite
Man with a Harmonica (from Once Upon a Time in the West)
Lolita
Arrangements by Morricone and Serino
