[Nick Zwar]

Along with John Williams and Jerry Goldsmith, Ennio Morricone was certainly among my “initial” film composer interests, among the first composers who I knew by name and whose records I bought. His music for the Italian western was of course legendary, and he was a “big” name, probably the most famous film composer in his day. My first Varèse Sarabande album of all time was the soundtrack LP for THE ISLAND. Now at that time, I knew Morricone from some of his western scores, and from the cover (I had not seen the movie), I expected the music to by more “twangy”, perhaps with guitars, horror style. Instead, the music opened with warmth and lyrical beauty. It was totally unexpected at that time, but I enjoyed it quite a bit, it became a Morricone favorite. The whole score is not very long (just about 35 minutes), but it’s quite diverse: next to the lyrical main theme, it’s got suspense (“Boarding Party”), action (“Tue-Barbe Hunts Maynard”), pop (“Beth”) and more. The five minute “Island Magic” is quite a set piece.
I was shocked when Varèse Sarabande finally released that on CD, and it was SOLD OUT before I had a chance to get a copy! Fortunately, I was able to trade in a copy at the FSM board some time after that. So now I’ve got the LP and the CD (here they are today):

I always enjoyed Ennio Morricone, I like his inventiveness, he was very good at all kinds of styles.

Apart from THE ISLAND and all the “classics” (Leone Collaborations, The Mission, etc.), other favorites include UN UOMO DA RISPETTARE (a recent favorite), UN GENIO, DUO COMPARI, UN POLLO (one of the most joyful Morricone scores), LOLITA (just beautiful), RED SONJA, and MOSES (the latter is one I often mention as my “favorite” Morricone score, but I like them all. Oh yeah, NOSTROMO is another favorite.

I have over 200 Morricone albums, by no means all, but at least it’s a sizable portion. Included in these are several multi-disc compilation sets, so I should have for quite a few of his movies at least a few tracks.