Ennio Morricone’s intense score to director Giuseppe Tornatore’s autobiographical epic Baarìa is the maestro’s first feature film work in five years. Composing a great number of scores, Morricone is perhaps most famous for his cult scores for Sergio Leone’s 1960s Dollars trilogy and Once Upon A Time In America, and Brian De Palma’s The Untouchables. Baarìa is the eighth score Morricone has composed for a Tornatore film. Since his work on Tornatore’s Oscar Winning Cinema Paradiso in 1989, Morricone has scored all his subsequent films...

Ennio Morricone's music for Baarìa reminded me very much of his wonderful work on Giuseppe Tornatore Cinema Paradiso (1988).

The album opens with the beautiful 'Sinfonia per Baaria' (11 min). The final 3 mins of this track includes dialogue from the movie. I don't normally enjoy soundtracks where audio from the film is included, but in this case it actually adds much to the track. And if you really want the music without the dialogue then you'll be grateful that it appears elsewhere on the soundtrack without the dialogue ('Il Vento, Il Mare, I Silenzi'). There's also a wonderful segment of music with off key music which is complimented by a beautiful section of orchestrated music. The result of this rather odd mix is amazingly well realised.

Throughout the soundtrack there are a number of themes that are referenced time and again through various variations.

'Brindisi' is your typical Morricone emotional track - and my personal favourite. While the main theme is beautiful, what makes this so memorable is the chord changes as the track winds down.

Yet again Morricone delivers a beautiful and touching score.

9

Darren Rea