Ennio Morricone, who died at the age of 91 after a bad fall, has not only influenced film composers. His music and orchestrations have also fed many composers and arrangers of pop and song. Starting with Calogero, who tells us how “il Maestro” changed his life.
You have often cited Ennio Morricone among your influences…
CALOGERO. I'm a little sad, of course. Since this Monday morning, we listen to his music at home, we try to make Morricone sound for the children, for everyone. We put "Cinema Paradiso", "the Clan of the Sicilians" ... I'm with my brother (Editor's note: Gioacchino Maurici, also musician and composer) and we remember our very first record, a compilation of his French films, "the Banker "," I like Icarus "," Breakage "... We had a Farfisa organ in the living room and the record player next to it. We reproduced the omnipresent organ on this album. It was on this record that we learned to make music.
How old were you?
Eight years, I think. What is great about him is that he is both very sharp and subtle in writing and very accessible, popular, moving. Anyone can play Morricone, even when you're just starting out. He is an absolute genius, even beyond the greatest composer of film music of all time. For me, he is on the whole of his work above Mahler, Dutilleux, Satie, who however influenced him… It is like a forest which disappears for the musicians. The authors, the arrangers, the rappers, who sampled it a lot, we all lose someone from his family.
VIDEO. Ennio Morricone, composer of "Good, the Bad and the Ugly", is dead
There is Morricone in your orchestrations…
Clearly, Morricone is in my DNA. I have always been inspired by him, I always compose my orchestras while thinking of him. The strings, the horns, I know how he arranged them, I studied the way he worked. My music would never have been the same without him, I would never have done "Dancing again", "Shadow and light" ... "Facing the sea", composed with my brother with harpsichord, ukulele, several layers of instruments, is directly inspired by Morricone. It was a master, a prof.
Has it changed your life?
For sure. He made me realize that with music, harmonies, we can invent a real parallel life, a world that feels good… When he was making songs, it was “Here's To You” (Editor's note: Joan Baez in 1971 in the film “Sacco and Vanzetti”) , a masterpiece! He was also a noise technician, who knew how to create a fair atmosphere with a spring, the sound of the wind, as in the films of Sergio Leone. He pushed him to the climax with the man on the harmonica. This strident harmonica, a priori unbearable, which ends up giving you tears in your eyes. What a stroke of genius!
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Have you met him?
Thrice. After his concerts at the Palais des Congrès, a long time ago, and in Bercy, in 2018, but also when we shared the scene of the arenas of Nîmes, the same year. It was very emotional for me because I was playing the next day. We were in the same hotel, we took a photo together. What touched me was that his agent made him listen to my song "Tien An Men", and he said, "This young man should make film music; He had an English side, rather distant but with humor. I had more discussions with him when RTL surprised me to organize a conversation between us. We talked about writing music and he was more relaxed.
What does Morricone represent for Italians, your parents' country?
A living god, a rockstar! All Neapolitan families, all Italians, have a compilation of Morricone in their car. In the 19th century, I am convinced that he would have composed the Italian anthem and that there would be statues of him. What is funny is that he had an immense international career and that he did not speak English. He spoke Italian, period, and his work did the rest.