Five obscure and underrated Ennio Morricone scores
Ennio Morricone was one of the most prolific composers of his generation. Over the course of his career, Morricone composed and arranged over 400 scores for a dizzying variety of films. Most are aware of his work for Cinema Paradiso, The Good, The Bad & The Ugly, and The Mission, but few are aware of the many scores he wrote for obscure thrillers, Giallo horrors and dark comedies over the years.
People often mistake Morricone for a traditionalist. Though deeply respectful of the formal processes of composition, Ennio had an innate inclination towards the avant-garde. From 1964 until 1980, he was a member of Gruppo di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza di Improvvisazione, a group of Rome-based composers dedicated to the development of improvisation and new musical methods.
The G.I.N.C was, in essence, a musical laboratory, and many of the scores on this list simmer with that same experimentalism. This eclectic list features some of Morricone’s most pioneering and eclectic compositions, works that deserve far more attention than they get, especially considering they reveal a different side to one of modern cinema’s most revered composers. Below, you’ll find five obscure and underrated scores from Morricone’s long and varied career.
Five obscure and underrated Ennio Morricone scores:
A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin – Lucio Fulci (1971)
The title of this particular bizzare film tells us everything we need to know. Directed by Giallo maestro Lucio Fulci, A Lizard In A Woman’s Skin tells the story of Carol Hammond, the daughter of a respected politician living in London. After experiencing a series of nightmares depicting rampant orgies, LSD use and brutal murders, Carol discovers that a real-life investigation into the death of her neighbour is underway.
The film’s surreal, jazz-infused score is proof that Morricone was more than a composer; he was a sonic explorer capable of crafting otherworldly landscapes. Blending elements of funk and jazz with a musique concrète sensibility, Morricone’s music is as unhinged and disturbing as the film itself. In one especially unnerving cue, Morricone makes use of looped coyote howls to emphasise the horror of the infamous “dog scene”, in which Carol opens the door to a room where dogs are being experimented on, their internal organ exposed and pulsating.
Mother’s Heart– Salvatore Semperi (1969)
Morricone’s work in the 1960s and ’70s was nothing if not varied. As well as composing countless scores for Giallo horrors, thrillers and spaghetti westerns, he also offered up his services for the occasional comedy. His work on 1969’s Mother’s Heart (Cuore di Mamma) is magnificent, hugely underrated, and well worth your time.
Written and directed by former left-wing militant Salvatore Semperi, Mother’s Heart stars Carla Gravina (the future deputy of the Italian communist party) as Lorenza Garrone, a middle-class divorce living a comfortable life with the help of a live-in housekeeper, who looks after her three increasingly dangerous children, who, as the film goes on commit a series of cruel and destructive acts. Morricone’s inventive score features lush choral rounds sung with childish enthusiasm, soporific celeste arrangments and achingly beautiful string sections. Tracks like ‘Nanna Nanna Per Adulteri’ are essential listening for any Morricone fan.
Spasmo – Umberto Lenzi (1974)
Starring Robert Hoffman and Suzy Kendall, this strange offering tells the story of Christian (Robert Hoffman) and his girlfriend, who are out walking along a deserted beach when they discover a woman’s body on the sand. When Christian meets the same woman at a yacht party the next day, he quickly falls in love.
Just as they’re preparing to go to bed together, an intruder breaks into their motel room and begins attacking Christian, who manages to shoot him with a pistol. When the corpse mysteriously goes missing a few hours later, Christian realises he’s in grave danger. Spasmo sees Morricone blend baroque instrumentation with funk bass, jazz rhythms and avant-garde flourishes. It’s disturbing, disorienting, and utterly intoxicating.
The Bird With The Crystal Plumage – Dario Argento (1971)
The first film in Dario Argento’s animal trilogy, The Bird with The Crystal Plumage, focuses on Sam Dalmas, an American writer living in Rome. On visiting a popular art gallery, Sam witnesses a murder attempt and becomes a key witness in an ongoing police investigation into an infamous serial killer. When he starts searching for clues that might reveal the killer’s identity, he discovers he may be the next target.
Many dedicated Morricone fans regard The Bird With The Crystal Plumage as one of the composer’s greatest scores. Indeed, few of the maestro’s works achieve quite the same unity of sound and image. In this sense, it is the perfect score for the perfect Giallo horror. Bossa Nova has never sounded quite so terrifying as it does here.
Metti, una sera a cena – Giuseppe Patroni Griffi (1969)
Metti, una sera a cena is far from obscure. The film was entered into the 1969 Cannes Film Festival and helped launch the singing career of Italian pop sensation Milva, who found huge success with the film’s title song. And yet, his score for Metti, una sera a cena is rarely spoken about with the same reverence as Morricone’s big hitters.
This erotic drama follows an author as he watches his wife attempt to seduce his best friend during a dinner party. After taking on yet another man, the husband decides to start sleeping with one of the other dinner guests, leading to an enormous sex spree in which everyone’s morals are challenged. Morricone’s loungey soundtrack won him the Nastro D’Argento Award for Best Score – and it’s easy to see why. At once sensual and melancholic, Metti una sera a cena is gold-standard Morricone.
