Tomorrow maestro Morricone will be visiting my home town for a concert. (Alas, I won't be visiting because of work related duties that *&&%^* come first.)
In honour of that, I'll give an interview on Dutch radio about the maestros work, and namely the sheer beauty and undeniable importance of it.
Are there any stories anecdote you can spare that I can share with my fellow Dutchmen? Your help will be awesome and appreciated.
You could start by warning them that he has cancelled so many concerts over the years - that its never on till he walks on stage! In fairness, in the last 10 years,.he has been more reliable than the 80s and 90s.
In the words of Don Trunick "The maestro seldom smiles for photographs."
Morricone is a workaholic who wakes at dawn at walks about his apartment doing exercises. His favourite food is wife Maria's Mushroom pizza.
He has always composed with pen and paper and doesnt like using computers.
Allessandroni used to say that Morricone never stopped thinking of themes. He used to tell a story where he was driving Ennio somewhere and could hear this tapping - perplexed, he thought there was something wrong with the car - but Morricone was tapping his finger and was composing a theme in his head while they were driving!!
I ordered a pizza and was mildly surprised to find him delivering it to my door. Guess the music business was slow that year. I feel bad that I only gave him 5% tip, but the pizza was cold and it had anchovies which I didnt order. Typical Ennio. He did laugh when I said "Is it safe?", lol.
You could do a lot worse than mention the Gillo Pontecorvo story. If I remember the details correctly, they were struggling to come up with a hook for Ali's Theme from Battle of Algiers, and Pontcorvo came up with something that he liked and remembered it by whistling it when knocking on Ennio's door. Ennio heard the whistling and before Pontecorvo could say anything, played him the same theme on the piano, pretending that he'd thought of it, to Pontecorvo's astonishment.
It shows Ennio's playful side, otherwise demonstrated only by him not having Bill seen to by his Sicilian friends for giving him a birthday card with a picture of a cat on the front saying "You're HOW old?"
There's also the age-old story of Morricone saying that he'll "fire the director" if he's not pleased with the collaboration. I can't remember the details, exactly (exact quote and film), but it was something he said in the screened pre-concert interview/documentary that aired before the Royal Albert Hall concert in 2010.
It's something that reflects his confidence, I guess. If not "high on himself", he does have that acerbic wit that comes to the fore sometimes. Maybe it's an Italian thing....
He can also be very self-deprecating on other occasions; or "going against popular opinion", like his disparaging remarks about his own work on the Leone spaghetti westerns, especially FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE.
