# What do you think about Ennio Morricone? Do you see him as an classical composer?



## atsizat (Sep 14, 2015)

I think he is the best classical composer of 20th century.
Here are some of the very best of his Works. He has very depressing pieces.


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

I like the theme to The Thing:






And La Piovra:


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## Schubussy (Nov 2, 2012)

My favourite movie score composer. And Sergio Leone is my favourite director. That they were schoolmates and ended up collaborating is one of the luckiest coincidences in history.


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

Schubussy said:


> That they were schoolmates


No kidding? How serendipitous!--or else, what a brilliant school placement official!


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## Alfacharger (Dec 6, 2013)

Ennio has written some concert works.


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

Essentially, Morricone makes pop music—he's a popular movie soundtrack composer and as such, his music doesn't usually work by itself—it's repetitive and boring.


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## Herman (Nov 12, 2015)

Certainly not! He's a good film music composer. That's all him.


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## Herman (Nov 12, 2015)

Morimur said:


> it's repetitive and boring.


Yes! I think that, too.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Morimur said:


> Essentially, Morricone makes pop music-he's a popular movie soundtrack composer and as such, his music doesn't usually work by itself-it's repetitive and boring.


Spot on, beyond boring from time to time.
Utter rubbish :devil:


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## gHeadphone (Mar 30, 2015)

Wow tough love guys!


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

I have no problem including movie score composers like Morricone, Williams, Shore, Howard and so on under classical music - that's where I file their CD's.

That said, Morricone may be an adequate (and sometimes more than adequate) movie score composer, he would not end up in my top100 classical composers of the 20th century. To be fair, neither would any of the others listed above.


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

Art Rock said:


> I have no problem including movie score composers like Morricone, Williams, Shore, Howard and so on under classical music - that's where I file their CD's.
> 
> That said, Morricone may be an adequate (and sometimes more than adequate) movie score composer, he would not end up in my top100 classical composers of the 20th century. To be fair, neither would any of the others listed above.


Regardless of how good his music is on it´s own the music is an important part of what makes a film good and many of the films he have made music to are good to a large part because of their music.
He is far from the first names I would think of among the greatest classical composers of the last century.


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## DiesIraeCX (Jul 21, 2014)

What do you all think of Nino Rota?


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## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

I don't care, I like his music, some of it anyway.


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

DiesIraeCX said:


> What do you all think of Nino Rota?


I have tried to listen to Nino Rotas music and I am not so very fond of it. He is much more prolific of non film music so it is not really the same.


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## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)




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## atsizat (Sep 14, 2015)

Some more pieces from him I love very much.


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## gardibolt (May 22, 2015)

I see film composers as classical composers generally. I don't see how Morricone writing music as the background for a Leone movie is significantly different from Beethoven writing background music for the play Egmont.


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## atsizat (Sep 14, 2015)

Morimur said:


> Essentially, Morricone makes pop music-he's a popular movie soundtrack composer and as such, his music doesn't usually work by itself-it's repetitive and boring.


You don't like sad musics? How is this boring? I am listening to this piece right now. It is a very sad piece and it is stabbing a knife into my heart.


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## Crudblud (Dec 29, 2011)

I think Morricone is at the very least an interesting focal point for a discussion concerning what it is that makes music enter and pervade the public consciousness. I don't personally care for his work overall, although some of his work on John Carpenter's _The Thing _is quite good. But then the question is: do I like it because it is good music that stands on its own, or because I associate it with Kurt Russell trying to fight off one of the most creepy and memorable monsters in horror movie history? Similarly: is the iconic nature of _The Ecstasy of Gold_ and _Triple Duel_, integral parts of the climax of _The Good, the Bad & the Ugly_, down to their own musical qualities or because they are impossible to separate from the classic graveyard scene that has come to be one of ─ if not _the_ ─ great defining image of the western in modern popular culture?


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

atsizat said:


> You don't like sad musics? How is this boring? I am listening to this piece right now. It is a very sad piece and it is stabbing a knife into my heart.


The piece is predictable and full of romantic cliches-boring. But I understand that the average person may find this 'deep' and 'sorrowful'. That's why pop music sells and music of better artistic quality does not. The masses are suckers for superficial displays of emotion-they feed off of it.


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## atsizat (Sep 14, 2015)

Morimur said:


> The piece is predictable and full of romantic cliches-boring. But I understand that the average person may find this 'deep' and 'sorrowful'. That's why pop music sells and music of better artistic quality does not. The masses are suckers for superficial displays of emotion-they feed off of it.


What do you mean by that's why pop music sells? This is not pop music.


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

atsizat said:


> What do you mean by that's why pop music sells? This is not pop music.


Listening to it now can be a bit boring but hearing it in the right contest the TV serial would be another thing.


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## atsizat (Sep 14, 2015)

Sloe said:


> Listening to it now can be a bit boring but hearing it in the right contest the TV serial would be another thing.


I myself don't find it boring at all. I find it full of sadness and I like musics that have sadness. I find Ennio Morricone way so good. This music is no different than a classical music, except that it was written for a movie. It is a sad classical music written by Ennio Morricone.


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

atsizat said:


> I myself don't find it boring at all. I find it full of sadness and I like musics that have sadness. I find Ennio Morricone way so good. This music is no different than a classical music, except that it was written for a movie. It is a sad classical music written by Ennio Morricone.


Classical music can be boring too. There is no guarantee that music is good just because it is classical. I also had a reservation if I heard that music in its right context the impression would probably be different.


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## atsizat (Sep 14, 2015)

Sloe said:


> Classical music can be boring too. There is no guarantee that music is good just because it is classical. I also had a reservation if I heard that music in its right context the impression would probably be different.


It is a very good piece for me. What I want in a music is emotion and it has so much emotion.


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

atsizat said:


> To me, it is a great piece. What I want in a music is emotion and it has so much emotion.


For me I don´t get the emotion I am sorry.
I am listening to Johannes Brahms second symphony now for me that is a great piece with much emotion.


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## Adam Weber (Apr 9, 2015)

I like his music.

I even liked some of it before I saw the films.

It's fun and catchy, though it's not "pop" music--whatever the heck _that_ means on TC (Anything you guys don't like, apparently, or anything "average people" listen to).

Whether it's emotional or not... Dumb question. Music can't be emotional, but people can. I feel something when I listen to the music, so... Sure, it's "emotional."

Now, is it "great" music? I dunno. I'm getting sick of these discussions. Too much sneering, not enough listening.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Adam Weber said:


> It's fun and catchy,


I know his music only superficially (he composed a huge amount of stuff), but his work can't be reduced to that. He did those catchy western soundtracks but also experimental free jazz, classical and choral music works, rock stuff, abstract library music like his album Controfase... I wonder if those who are dismissing him know his work in depth or just for his most catchy and famous works.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

gardibolt said:


> I see film composers as classical composers generally. I don't see how Morricone writing music as the background for a Leone movie is significantly different from Beethoven writing background music for the play Egmont.


Because Beethoven's incidental music is written in a classical style and fits within that tradition? The fact that movie music is written for the background of another art form is not what defines it as classical or not.


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## Adam Weber (Apr 9, 2015)

norman bates said:


> I know his music only superficially (he composed a huge amount of stuff), but his work can't be reduced to that. He did those catchy western soundtracks but also experimental free jazz, classical and choral music works, rock stuff, abstract library music like his album Controfase... I wonder if those who are dismissing him know his work in depth or just for his most catchy and famous works.


Fair enough. I wrote the comment in haste. I don't dismiss Morricone, though.


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## Iean (Nov 17, 2015)

Sloe said:


> Classical music can be boring too. There is no guarantee that music is good just because it is classical. I also had a reservation if I heard that music in its right context the impression would probably be different.


Very true! In as much as many members here find pop music as boring, there's plenty of classical music which are not only boring but can be prescribed by doctors for patients who are having difficulty sleeping:angel:


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## atsizat (Sep 14, 2015)

Iean said:


> Very true! In as much as many members here find pop music as boring, there's plenty of classical music which are not only boring but can be prescribed by doctors for patients who are having difficulty sleeping:angel:


My point was that I don't find a classical music boring in which I find deep sadness. I guess what is so emotional to me may not be so emotional to another person, right? I find Ennio Morricone's musics so emotional and I like sadness in music.


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## atsizat (Sep 14, 2015)

Some more musics from him


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## Crudblud (Dec 29, 2011)

gardibolt said:


> I see film composers as classical composers generally. I don't see how Morricone writing music as the background for a Leone movie is significantly different from Beethoven writing background music for the play Egmont.


I guess the difference is that incidental music doesn't make up the vast majority of Beethoven's output, nor is it what he is known for.


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## atsizat (Sep 14, 2015)

Some more beautiful musics from Ennio Morricone.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Beautiful, but I do believe this thread belongs in NON classical music :lol:


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

I believe all categories like "classical music" are completely arbitrary, so the answers to this question tell us more about the answerers than about the world.

For me, "film music" has a very important element of classical music, in that it is composer-centric; when it uses a traditional orchestra, the similarity is obviously even greater. But I still consider it a category of its own, because our attention is not ordinarily meant to be focused completely on the music; the criterion for good film music is not whether its score stands up to critical analysis but how it affects the audience (as a whole) during the film.


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## geralmar (Feb 15, 2013)

Years ago I owned a DG LP devoted to Morricone's classical compositions. They didn't sound at all like his movie music.


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## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

Thanks for posting Debora's Theme




Haven't heard that since watching the movie but I certainly remember it.
Makes me want to watch he movie again, if not only for its atmosphere, the city shots and the music are unforgettable.

Here's another cool western piece by Morricone: The Vice of Killing





P.S. I think the most "classical sounding" is the one I posted on the previous page, Gabriel's Oboe.


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## atsizat (Sep 14, 2015)

DeepR said:


> Thanks for posting Debora's Theme
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Did you listen to all the musics I shared? There are many musics sounding like classical among them


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## atsizat (Sep 14, 2015)

Pugg said:


> Beautiful, but I do believe this thread belongs in NON classical music :lol:


Some of his musics sound like classical, don't you think?


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## atsizat (Sep 14, 2015)

Crudblud said:


> I think Morricone is at the very least an interesting focal point for a discussion concerning what it is that makes music enter and pervade the public consciousness. I don't personally care for his work overall, although some of his work on John Carpenter's _The Thing _is quite good. But then the question is: do I like it because it is good music that stands on its own, or because I associate it with Kurt Russell trying to fight off one of the most creepy and memorable monsters in horror movie history? Similarly: is the iconic nature of _The Ecstasy of Gold_ and _Triple Duel_, integral parts of the climax of _The Good, the Bad & the Ugly_, down to their own musical qualities or because they are impossible to separate from the classic graveyard scene that has come to be one of ─ if not _the_ ─ great defining image of the western in modern popular culture?


I also don't like that he is just known by his some western musics like the good the bad the ugly as if all he composed were these. He composed a hell lot of things. I don't understand that. By the way I discovered this piece yesterday and I liked it.


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## atsizat (Sep 14, 2015)

The green leaves of summer arranged by Ennio Morricone


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## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

Morricone has produced some of the most beautiful melodies on the face of the earth. I personally do not consider him a classical composer, but I do consider him a composer of beauty.


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## atsizat (Sep 14, 2015)




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## MrTortoise (Dec 25, 2008)

I always think I'm going to get sick of hearing the theme from Cinema Paradiso, but then every time I hear it I fall in love with it again. 

I don't need to label him as pop or classical or soundtrack composer, I'm grateful for his work and collaborations.


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## atsizat (Sep 14, 2015)




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## atsizat (Sep 14, 2015)




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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

I feel silly submitting a post considering all of the fine posts that have been submitted so far.

For the record: Yes & Yes.


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## Biwa (Aug 3, 2015)

Yo-Yo Ma plays Ennio Morricone is a gorgeous album.

http://www.amazon.com/Yo-Yo-Ma-Plays-Ennio-Morricone/dp/B003PTP4S6


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## geralmar (Feb 15, 2013)

Swiped by Tarantino; also visual plug for EMI/RCA:


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## SalieriIsInnocent (Feb 28, 2008)

I absolutely love Ennio Morricone. It's interesting, I always thought his music was cool, but the last time I watched Once Upon a Time in the West, I found myself weeping to this piece. I've seen the movie many times, but it grabbed me that time.


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## atsizat (Sep 14, 2015)




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## atsizat (Sep 14, 2015)




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## Couac Addict (Oct 16, 2013)

Competent film work but does it stand up on its own?


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Morricone is a composer of new music. New music that is quite accessible and will probably do very well. This is good for art music in general.


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

ArtMusic said:


> Morricone is a composer of new music. New music that is quite accessible and will probably do very well. This is good for art music in general.


I must say hearing most of this film music taken out of its context is not fun to listen to. I want to hear music that is more lively that is accessible for me.


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## atsizat (Sep 14, 2015)

Sloe said:


> I must say hearing most of this film music taken out of its context is not fun to listen to. I want to hear music that is more lively that is accessible for me.


How about his very depressing works? I learnt how to post a youtube video after I opened this thread. I posted his better works before and I was not able to post youtube video. Since I didnt know how to do it, I just copied the links and put them on here when I first opened this thread. There are very depressing works among them, you think they are not accessible either? If you are in sad mood, they should make you depressed so badly. That's my opinion as a person who likes sadness in music.


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## atsizat (Sep 14, 2015)

ArtMusic said:


> Morricone is a composer of new music. New music that is quite accessible and will probably do very well. This is good for art music in general.


Some of his works sound very much like Classical music. What is a classical music anyway? What makes a music classical music? For example these musics below. How are these musics below different than a classical music? What makes a music classical music? If these musics below are not classical musics, I wonder what makes a music classical music or not.


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## tortkis (Jul 13, 2013)

Interview with Helmut Lachenmann
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-music-lachenmann-idUSTRE69L04920101022
_Q: So you settled into a bourgeois lifestyle, but as an avant garde composer. Whose music do you listen to when you relax?

A: "I was asked this at Harvard University where I was speaking about Webern, Schoenberg, Elliott Carter, Boulez, Morton Feldman -- and someone asked, 'But which is your favorite composer?' And I said this is Ennio Morricone, this is a wonderful artist and I love it -- but as art, it is another thing. I enjoy, but I have another path than him. And I also said when I go with my children on vacations in the car we don't sing 12-tone music."_

It may not mean anything, but I am usually interested in the preference of a composer I respect.

Though I don't know much about Morricone's music, I enjoyed John Zorn's The Big Gundown very much.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

tortkis said:


> Interview with Helmut Lachenmann
> http://www.reuters.com/article/us-music-lachenmann-idUSTRE69L04920101022
> _Q: So you settled into a bourgeois lifestyle, but as an avant garde composer. Whose music do you listen to when you relax?
> 
> A: "I was asked this at Harvard University where I was speaking about Webern, Schoenberg, Elliott Carter, Boulez, Morton Feldman -- and someone asked, 'But which is your favorite composer?' And I said this is Ennio Morricone, this is a wonderful artist and I love it -- but as art, it is another thing. I enjoy, but I have another path than him. And I also said when I go with my children on vacations in the car we don't sing 12-tone music."_


Now I'm absolutely curious to know if there are other serialist composers who sing 12-tone music in the car with their children


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

norman bates said:


> Now I'm absolutely curious to know if there are other serialist composers who sing 12-tone music in the car with their children


Weren't the postmen supposed to be whistling 12-tone music by now?


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Nereffid said:


> Weren't the postmen supposed to be whistling 12-tone music by now?


They probably would be if it weren't treated with kid gloves by others for fear of contamination.


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

derailing post, deleted


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## chalkpie (Oct 5, 2011)

Just discovering EM and am blown away. I never really got into film score for the most part, but this guy goes way beyond just cliched film scores. I hear avant garde, pop, classical, jazz, prog, folk, etc etc in such a creative and unique manner. The quality of it all is staggering as well. 

I am a fan for life - enough said. BTW, I utterly disagree with those who find his music just repetitive and boring. I also find this music more than capable of standing on its own as compositions, as opposed to needing a visual component on the screen - in that way its akin to great opera composition. 

Genius? You be the judge. I think so.


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## Reichstag aus LICHT (Oct 25, 2010)

norman bates said:


> Now I'm absolutely curious to know if there are other serialist composers who sing 12-tone music in the car with their children


Twelve-tone family favourites such as:

So, a needle pulling thread
Do, a deer, a female deer
La, a note to follow any other note but La
Mi, a name I call myself
Re, a drop of golden sun
(and so on, including sharps and flats)


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

I see that maestro Morricone has just died, at the age of 91: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/ennio-morricone-dead-prolific-italian-composer-was-91-858358

I suppose one cannot complain about making it to 91, and he had an amazingly successful career, achieving both public acclaim and financial rewards.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

I'm reminded of "Der abschied" from Mahler's Das lied von der Erde when I listen to this:


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

He was a legend, brilliant composer. He wrote one of the most iconic scores ever: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Everyone knows the opening motto. Cinema Paradiso has a love theme that is unforgettable. Now maybe publishers will get serious and make arrangements of his music more easily available. RIP


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## aioriacont (Jul 23, 2018)

great composer, but he seems a bit cold and pale now


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

_Certainly not! He's a good film music composer. That's all him._

I would agree other than to say he was probably much better than good. His score to *Once Upon A Time In the West* was No. 5 on a survey/poll/vote of film scores taken by this blog, I believe. By any standard it is one of the more memorable scores ever in Hollywood with one theme being used in a beer ad today.


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## Alfacharger (Dec 6, 2013)

He will be remembered for his scores but like John Williams, his concert music will be a curiosity.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

I like this better than Bartok's. Can't buy it in USA sad to say. Download available in England.


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