Composer Talks About the Spirituality Behind His Work

By Edward Pentin

ROME, SEPT. 10, 2009 (Zenit.org).- You may not recognize his name, but you will almost certainly be familiar with his music.

Maestro Ennio Morricone is widely regarded as one of Hollywood’s finest film score composers. Best known for the memorable and moody soundtracks to the “Spaghetti Westerns” of the 1960s, such as “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly,” “A Fistful of Dollars,” and “Once Upon a Time in the West,” to many Catholics he is perhaps best loved for his moving score in “The Mission,” a 1986 film about Jesuit missionaries in 18th-century South America.

But his contribution to the movie industry extends far beyond his most famous works, having scored around 450 films and worked with Hollywood’s leading directors, from Sergio Leone and Bernardo Bertolucci to Brian De Palma and Roman Polanski.

And at 80, he’s still going strong. The legendary composer has just completed the soundtrack to Giuseppe Tornatore’s “Baaria,” an Italian picture which opened this year’s Venice Film Festival, while Quentin Tarantino invited him to write the score for his latest film, “Inglourious Basterds” (scheduling difficulties prevented Morricone from doing so, but he allowed Tarantino to use clips of his previous work in the film instead).

The renowned Italian composer also continues to pick up highly prestigious awards: earlier this year, Nicolas Sarkozy, the French President, appointed him to the rank of Knight in the Order of the Legion of Honor — the country’s highest honour. That’s in addition to a lengthy list of other major awards including an Honorary Academy Award, five Oscar Nominations, five Baftas, and a Grammy.

Yet Maestro Morricone, who was born in Rome, prefers to keep out of the limelight and rarely gives interviews. So it came as a surprise when he kindly agreed to make an exception one August morning, and invited me to his central Rome apartment to talk principally about his faith and his music.

His home is much as you would expect: An immaculate black grand piano sits beside the window of a grand and tastefully decorated sitting room, artistically lined with murals, classical paintings and mahogany panels. But Morricone, who has a wife and four grown up children, is a humble man without airs, and he responds to questions in typically Roman fashion: directly and to the point.

Inspiration

I begin by asking him if his music, which many consider very spiritual, is inspired by his faith. Although he describes himself as a “man of faith,” he takes a very professional yet simple view of his work and says his faith doesn’t inspire him in most of his writing. If the movie is not about religion, he won’t think about God and the Church, he says. “I think of the music that I have to write — music is an abstract art,” he explains. “But of course, when I have to write a religious piece, certainly my faith contributes to it.”

He adds that he has inside of him a “spirituality that I always retain in my writing,” but it’s not something he wills to be present, he simply feels it.

“As a believer, this faith is probably always there, but it’s for others to realize it, musicologists and those that analyze not only the pieces of music but also have an understanding of my nature, and the sacred and the mystical,” he explains. However, he says he believes that God helps him “write a good composition, but that’s another story.”

He gives a similarly professional and straightforward answer when asked if he has any qualms about writing music for gratuitously violent films. “I am called to serve the film,” he says. “If the film is violent, then I compose music for a violent film. If a film is about love, I work for a film of love. Perhaps there can be violent films in which there is sacredness or have mystical elements to the violence, but I don’t willingly look for these films. I try to strike a balance with the spirituality of the film, but the director doesn’t always think the same way.”

Ennio Morricone began his music career in 1946 after receiving a trumpet diploma. The next year, he was already composing theatre music, as well as playing in a jazz band to support his family. But his career in film music, which began in 1961, took off a couple of years later when he started working with his old school friend Sergio Leone and his brand of “Spaghetti Westerns.”

He’s perhaps most famous for that genre, yet he says they make up only eight percent of his repertoire, and he has turned down a hundred other such movies. “Everyone asks me to make Westerns,” he says, “but I tend not to do them because I prefer variety.”

A technical miracle

Turning to “The Mission,” he says the great thing about that film score was its “technical and spiritual effect.” By that, he means the way it managed to combine three musical themes related to the movie. The presence of violins and Father Gabriel’s oboe represent “the Renaissance experience of the progress of instrumental music.” The film then moves on to other forms of music that came out of the Church reforms of the Council of Trent, and ends with the music of the native Indians.

The result was a “contemporary” theme in which all three elements — the instruments that came out of the Renaissance, the post-conciliar reformed music, and the ethnic melodies — harmoniously come together at the very end of the film. “The first and second theme go together, the first and third can go together, and the second and third go together,” Morricone explains. “That was my technical miracle which I believe was a great blessing.”

But the Italian composer says he doesn’t have a formula for a successful film score. “If I knew, I would always write more music like this,” he says, adding that the quality of the music depends on whether he is happy or sad. “When I’m less happy, I’m always saved by professionalism and technique,” he says. He also won’t mention any favourite pieces, or favourite movies. “I love them all because all have given me some kind of torment and suffering when working on them, but I mustn’t and won’t make a distinction,” he says.

We turn to the subject of another keen musician: Pope Benedict XVI. Morricone says he has a “very good opinion” of the Holy Father. “He seems to me to be a very high minded Pope, a man of great culture and also great strength,” he says. He is particularly complimentary about Benedict XVI’s efforts to reform the liturgy — a subject about which Morricone feels very strongly.

“Today the Church has made a big mistake, turning the clock back 500 years with guitars and popular songs,” he argues. “I don’t like it at all. Gregorian Chant is a vital and important tradition of the Church and to waste this by having kids mix religious words with profane, Western songs is hugely grave, hugely grave.”

He says it’s turning the clock back because the same thing happened before the Council of Trent when singers mixed profanity with sacred music. “He [the Pope] is doing well to correct it,” he says. “He should correct it with much more firmness. Some churches have taken heed [of his corrections], but others haven’t.”

Maestro Morricone looks fit and considerably younger than his age, which enables him to continue to give concerts around the world. In fact, he is in more demand than ever: next month he’ll be performing his soundtracks at the Los Angeles Hollywood Bowl.

Yet despite all his fame and accolades, this famous Italian composer hasn’t lost any of his Roman earthiness and humility. It’s perhaps this, as much as his stirring and unique compositions, which makes him one of Hollywood’s greats.

Quoting Zorba, in the film ‘Zorba the Greek’, Fr Adolfo Nicolás told the staff, pupils, Jesuits and colleagues of Crescent College Comprehensive Limerick that “Life is trouble!” He then added: “And the same is true of education – education is trouble, as you know!” Preaching at Mass in the college to mark its 150th anniversary, Fr Adolfo, in a sermon which was both moving and amusing, held the attention of a packed assembly hall as he spoke about the core Christian truth that there is no human growth without suffering, no resurrection without the cross.”In today’s world it can sometimes seem that everything can come easy. Modern communications and technology allows us to predict the weather, cook fast, do school work with a cut-and-paste job – the universal temptation for students! Everything seems to be easier except life. Living, becoming a person, relating to our families, friends, work, study, ourselves is hard. That’s because we’re human, not machines. There is no such thing as a painless education, no hope without doubts, no life without pain.”

Pope Benedict XVI examines a meteorite from Mars while visiting the new headquarters of the Vatican Observatory in Castel Gandolfo, Italy, Sept. 16. (CNS/L’Osservatore Romano via Reuters)

CASTEL GANDOLFO, Italy, SEPT. 17, 2009 (Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI spent a leisurely hour with the Jesuit scientists who staff the Vatican Observatory, giving his papal blessing to their new headquarters, which the director says symbolize the observatory’s mission.

The Pope blessed the new premises for the observatory on Wednesday. The new site, just over a mile from the previous location, is at the edge of the papal villa in Castel Gandolfo, just at the beginning of the territory of Albano.

“In this place, I think I see almost a metaphor of the observatory’s mission: In the Church, close to the Pope, but on the border with the world, open to dialogue with everyone, with those who believe and those who don’t believe,” Jesuit Father José Gabriel Funes, the observatory’s director, explained in an interview today with L’Osservatore Romano.

The observatory’s offices and library, as well as the conference room, the school and residence area of the Jesuit community, are now in the Basilian monastery in the historic Pia Square of Albano.

The new site also has accommodations for students and researchers. The collections of meteorites and other artifacts, such as ancient telescopes, have been moved to the new headquarters as well.

The observatory’s move to the new premises — the fourth in its history — and that of the 15 scientists who staff it, is due to the growing number of visitors.

Looking forward

The observatory’s two largest telescopes were left behind at the papal residence of Castel Gandolfo.

Also remaining are two other observation instruments of great historical value: the Schmidt and Carte du Ciel telescopes. This latter instrument will be restored and included in a future museum of astronomy which, it is hoped, will be opened in Castel Gandolfo.

In the short term, it will be one of the pieces of the exhibition “Astrum 2009,” which the Vatican Museums will house from Oct. 15 to Jan. 16, in the context of the International Year of Astronomy. The display will exhibit the patrimony of astronomy in Italy since the time of Galileo.

Also on the occasion of the International Year of Astronomy, the Vatican Observatory and the Pontifical Academy of Sciences have organized a congress on astro-biology, which will be held Nov. 6-11. This will be a meeting of specialists to discuss the subject of the search for life in the universe.

From the 4th to the 9th of September Father General Nicolás visited Croatia and Hungary to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of these two Provinces.
In Croatia he visited Zagreb where he participated in a number of meetings and gatherings. The visit to Hungary was centered in Budapest and Miskolc.

Click to see the slideshow. 

Posted by Ryan Duns, SJ

On Saturday night, I went to Holy Name Church with Father Karl Kaiser, SJ, the president of U of D Jesuit. I wasn’t surprised that attendance seemed sparse: it is, after all, Labor Day weekend and I suspect that many people had taken advantage of the beautiful weather and holiday to do some traveling. Besides, there were several college football games that afternoon, so I suspect that the usual crowd ended up finding a different Mass to attend.

It was, however, kind of exciting to see two of my own students amid the congregation. It was even nicer that each one approached me with his family after Mass to say hello. One of my students, in my sophomore New Testament class, asked me with a wry smile whether I realized that the passage of scripture I had assigned as the basis of the weekend’s writing assignment was the same passage that had been proclaimed that day.

The assignment is what I’ve called “Sermon from Your Seat.” The students are asked to write a 1-page, typed, double-spaced reflection on a passage from Scripture…which, it turns out, is the Sunday Gospel reading from the liturgical cycle! Their prompt is to write a mini-homily, or sermon, addressing an audience of their peers: what, in essence, does another sophomore need to hear from this piece of scripture?

The point is twofold. In a course on the New Testament, I’d be remiss if I didn’t encourage them to read the Bible (prayer each day, I might add, is taken from the Gospel of Mark which we are slowly working our way through). Second, I know that kids are easily bored at Mass. I figure, therefore, that if they’ve already prayed over and thought through the Gospel reading that listening to the homily will be more engaging. Think about it: students will come to Mass already having an idea about what the Word of God means and, as they listen to the homily, will (hopefully) be engaged listeners trying to see how closely their reflection matches the one given that day.

By helping students to raise even the simplest question, “Will Father/the Reverend preach on the same thing that I did,” I hope to facilitate a more engaged listening to the Gospel each Sunday. Ideally, the student will wrestle with the homily as he hears it, trying to see how his insights and the priests resonate with one another. Better still would it be for the student to engage his parents afterwards, saying how close he and the priest were that day or, perhaps, why the preacher was dead wrong in his interpretation….a potentially sophomoric sentiment appropriate for sophomores!

Anyway, I was thrilled that at least ONE student out of nearly SIXTY seems to have gotten the point of the assignment. Heck, I’ll be happy if 30 of them realize that the passage they were assigned is the one that was read at Mass. But I figure that if I can help to encourage an encounter with the Word of God, prompting the students to think deeply on how the Word enters into and affects their lives, I will be making my own contribution to the formation of Men for Others.

Posted by Ryan Duns, SJ 

One of the three courses that I am teaching this year is a senior-level “Introduction to Philosophy.” We began the semester by reading a short essay by philosopher/theologian/mystic Simone Weil entitled “Reflections on the Right Use of School Studies with a View to the Love of God.” This was followed by several days discussing the concept of Justice, using Book I of Plato’s Republic (the dialogue between Thrasymachus and Socrates) as our point of departure. This last week, we spent four days reading and discussing Plato’s Euthyphro in class.

Reading the Euthyphro has spurred me to read several other Platonic dialogues. The one I’m currently reading, the Phaedo, provides a fascinating treatment on the nature of the soul and the afterlife.

In a week marked with rancorous debate concerning President Obama’s address to students and the furor surrounding his speech on healthcare, two points raised in the Phaedo seem worthy of mention.

In the heat of the debate surrounding the nature of the soul, a serious blow is believed to have been dealt to Socrates’ position. Those who witnessed the exchange where Cebes appears to demolish Socrates’ argument are left with “an unpleasant feeling at hearing” what was said. Socrates, however, did not take to the streets (he was, at this point, in prison) nor did he launch a smear campaign against his opponent. Listen, then, to how own observer describes Socrates’ response:

Often…as I have admired Socrates, I never admired him more than at that moment. That he should be able to answer was nothing, but what astonished me was, first, the gentle and pleasant and approving manner in which he regarded the words of the young men, and then his quick sense of the wound which had been inflicted by the argument, and his ready application of the healing art. He might be compared to a general rallying his defeated and broken army, urging them to follow him and return to the field of argument.
Socrates does not lambast his questioners, nor does he shrilly decry them for questioning his argument. He regards them with patient kindness and, fully aware of the seriousness of their counter-argument, he re-enters the discussion.

Compare this with the manner in which discussions are being held today. It seems rather commonplace to employ label-and-dismiss tactics against opponents. Senator Kennedy has been labeled an “abortionist” who should have been denied a Catholic funeral; President Bush has been called a “traitor” and should face war crimes. No effort, it seems, is made to re-engage in civil discourse, no attempt is made to “return to the field of argument” as disagreeing parties seek together the truth of the matter.

Second, I was captivated by the following lines of the dialogue:

Let us take care that we avoid a danger…The danger of becoming misologists…which is one of the very worst things that can happen to us. For as there are misanthropists or haters of men, there are also misologists or haters of ideas, and both spring from the same cause, which is ignorance of the world.

And a little later on:

For the partisan, when he is engaged in a dispute, cares nothing about the rights of the question, but is anxious only to convince his hearers of his assertion.
I can only imagine that Socrates would have nodded his head knowingly, then, in response to this week’s outburst by Congressman Joe Wilson (R-SC) who shouted out “You Lie!” in the midst of the President’s speech.

I’m not interested in debating healthcare reform or its subtleties and nuances. Indeed, it matters little to me whether Wilson is a Republican or Democrat. What I am interested in is that this elected official appears to have neither the courtesy nor restraint that should be expected of those who are engaged in crafting and forming policies that will affect an entire country. In our classrooms we try to teach our students to listen carefully and disagree respectfully after analyzing and thinking-through an opponent’s position. If we were to follow Mr. Wilson, however, there’d be little need for any such painstaking work: students could simply write “Shakespeare’s Wrong!” or “Pope Leo XIII Lies!” or “Lincoln is Dumb!” on their papers and expect to have an audience.

Not enough people read this blog for me to worry that my insinuating that Representative Wilson is a misologist will cause a stink. To be fair, I think both sides of partisan politics are misologists who are interested only in scoring points with their constituencies rather than trying to work together to help people.

Plato wanted to kick the poets out of the Republic, for he feared that their verses would provide poor models for the people to imitate. What then would Plato do today, when it is our leadership who is setting such poor examples for the people to follow?