Remembering Ennio Morricone
and his sense of the Sacred
 |
| Composer Ennio Morricone and Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi in the Vatican (Vatican Media) |
The Oscar-winning composer, Ennio Morricone, whose music
defined the atmosphere and success of hundreds of films of all genres, has died
in Rome, aged 91. Lesser known are his production of Sacred Music and his
admiration for Pope Francis.
By Linda Bordoni
The glory of Ennio Morricone’s genius cannot but elevate the
listener to the heavens in a score written for Pope Francis and the 200th
anniversary of the founding of the Society of Jesus.
It’s the Missa Papae Francisci, performed
for the first time on 10 June 2015 at the Chiesa del Gesù in Rome, dedicated to
Pope Francis and to the legendary composer’s wife, Maria, to whom, as he never
ceased to say, he owed everything.
We are all familiar with the music of Morricone, the soul
and poignant 'emotion-maker' in films like "Once Upon a Time in the
West", "The Mission", "The Legend of 1900",
and many, many more.
But not everyone knows that Morricone’s career began in
1950, when he arranged music for the Holy Year so successfully that he was then
commissioned to arrange a long list of popular songs of devotion for radio
broadcasting.
A love for Sacred Music
Although crowds flocked to listen to him conduct world-class
orchestras perform his music for film, he never tired of expressing his love
for sacred music and Gregorian chant.
Alongside his “Hollywood” career, Morricone composed
religious music constantly - including a cantata with words by St. Pope John
Paul II and the mystical Vuoto d’anima piena for the
millennium of the Cathedral of Sarsina, in northern Italy.
A Jesuit friend, he revealed, asked him in 2012 to compose a
Mass for the upcoming anniversary of the Jesuit Order. He said he dallied until
the election of the new Pope, the first Jesuit Pope in history.
“The dedication to him was spontaneous. Then I was able to
meet him in the Vatican and show him the score”, he said in an interview.
A score composed in the shape of a Cross
He also explained that he composed the written score of the
Mass with the Trinity in mind and in the shape of a cross: “a musical cross
that starts with two horns that follow two different long melodies, then the
trumpet that makes a soft and light sound, and then comes the vertical
dimension of the orchestra”.
Pope Francis Medal
In 2019 Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, President of the
Pontifical Council for Culture presented Morricone with the Medal of Pope
Francis’ Pontificate for his “extraordinary artistic work in the sphere of
music, universal language of peace, solidarity, and spirituality”.
Meanwhile, if you listen carefully, you will notice that in
the final section of the Mass, Morricone re-proposes Gabriel’s Oboe, the theme
from the film “The Mission”, undeniably one of the most beautiful scores ever
written for film, and a powerful evocation of the turmoil of Jesuit
missionaries and their fight for the rights of indigenous peoples.
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