Desert Island Classics #11: Ennio Morricone's The Mission
Original Soundtrack to the Motion Picture
Desert Island Classics #11
Ennio Morricone: The Mission Original Soundtrack from the Motion Picture. The London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Ennio Morricone and David Bedford, with Joan Whiting on oboe and the Barnet Schools Choir. First release 1986, and remastered release in 2002 by Virgin Records.
And now for something different.
The 1986 movie The Mission, directed by Roland Joffe, centers around Spanish Jesuit missionaries that travel to the jungle in South America in the 1750s to convert the native Guarani people to Christianity. It stars Jeremy Irons, Robert De Niro, Aidan Quinn, and Liam Neeson among others. The film was nominated for seven Academy Awards (winning just one, for cinematography). I remember enjoying the movie when it came out, although being in college at the time I’m sure some of the historical and cultural inaccuracies were lost on me at the time. The film has been criticized for putting the Jesuit missionaries in too positive a light, but never really developing any of the Guarani characters fully in order to tell both sides of the story.
Even though the movie has been somewhat forgotten over the years, the original soundtrack composed, conducted, edited, and produced by Ennio Morricone, most certainly has not been forgotten. The soundtrack has always remained one of my favorites, and in my opinion it is Morricone’s finest work.
Ennio Morricone (1928 - 2020)
Italian composer and conductor Ennio Morricone wrote more than 400 scores for film and television, as well as over 100 other classical works. The winner of numerous prestigious awards, Morricone is generally considered one of the greatest film composers of all time. He wrote the music for over 70 award-winning films, but is probably most known for his work with the so-called “Spaghetti Westerns” (the name coming from the mostly Italian directors of the films). Morricone’s scores in the 1960s for such films as The Good, the Bad, and The Ugly and Once Upon a Time in the West became very well-known and sold millions of copies.
In the 1970s, Morricone turned to work with movies in the horror genre and composed music for The Exorcist II: The Heretic, Holocaust 2000, and The Thing. In 1978 he earned his first Academy Award nomination for Best Original Score for Days of Heaven starring Richard Gere.
Working with director Roland Joffe was a coup, as Joffe was just coming off great success directing the film The Killing Fields. The plot and theme of The Mission was a departure for Morricone, but as it turned out a very successful one. At one time the soundtrack for The Mission was one of the best-selling film scores, selling over 3 million copies worldwide.
Controversy arose when the soundtrack for The Mission was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Score in 1987, but did not win. The winner that year was Herbie Hancock’s Round Midnight. Morricone said in an interview, “I definitely felt that I should have won for The Mission, especially when you consider that the Oscar-winner that year was Round Midnight, which was not an original score. It had a very good arrangement by Herbie Hancock, but it used existing pieces. So there could be no comparison with The Mission. There was a theft!” As a completely original score, there is no doubt in my mind that The Mission should have taken the Oscar. As a result of this controversy, the Academy changed the guidelines for future years so that "scores diluted by the use of tracked (inserted music not written by the composer) or pre-existing music" would no longer be eligible for award nomination.
Morricone rarely left his native Rome to work anywhere else, and never bothered to learn English despite writing scores for many English language films and for Hollywood. Morricone has influenced composers and musicians across the spectrum, and due to the enormity of his output, it is still difficult to estimate how much influence he will continue to have in the future.
The Soundtrack
The reason I am taking this recording with me to the desert island is because more than most movie soundtracks, Morricone’s musical language here falls under a “classical” umbrella. But more importantly, the themes and melodies used in the soundtrack are among the most moving, accessible, and memorable not just in film music, but in all genres of music. It should be noted that Morricone’s wife Maria wrote the Latin texts for the choral pieces in The Mission.
The tracks and timings of the soundtrack run as follows:
"On Earth as It Is in Heaven" – 3:50
"Falls" – 1:55
"Gabriel's Oboe" – 2:14
"Ave Maria Guaraní" – 2:51
"Brothers" – 1:32
"Carlotta" – 1:21
"Vita Nostra" – 1:54
"Climb" – 1:37
"Remorse" – 2:46
"Penance" – 4:03
"The Mission" – 2:49
"River" – 1:59
"Gabriel's Oboe" – 2:40
"Te Deum Guaraní" – 0:48
"Refusal" – 3:30
"Asunción" – 1:27
"Alone" – 4:25
"Guaraní" – 3:56
"The Sword" – 2:00
"Miserere" – 1:00
There are essentially three different themes Morricone uses throughout the soundtrack, at times they overlap, and at times he uses variations on the original theme. Here are the main themes, and where they are located in the soundtrack:
I. The most famous and recognizable piece from the soundtrack is “Gabriel’s Oboe”, played on the recording by Joan Whiting. The melody is soaring, full of intricacy and containing an affecting, sentimental feeling that cuts straight to the heart. Indeed, I would put this particular theme among the top melodies EVER composed, such is its brilliance. It can be heard in choral form on “On Earth as It Is in Heaven” at the beginning, and then it is taken up by the oboe. It is best heard on the third track, “Gabriel’s Oboe”, but then appears again in other forms on other tracks. You may have heard this melody elsewhere, as it was given lyrics by Chiara Ferraù, and turned into the crossover classical song “Nella Fantasia” first sung by Sarah Brightman and released in 1998. The song has been covered by several other artists as well.
II. The next theme Morricone uses is from “Falls”, the second track on the soundtrack. It is a simple but very effective melody which toward the end of falls rises to briefly become something like a great hymn. It appears again in “Climb”, on “The Mission”, and on the last track “Miserere”. Morricone would later use this disarming melody in a work commemorating the victims of the September 11 attacks.
III. The final theme that recurs is the choral chant first heard on the first track, “On Earth as It Is in Heaven”. Perhaps its effectiveness stems from Morricone’s desire to recreate what might be considered to be indigenous music. Whatever the reason, it is very catchy. It also reappears on “Vita Nostra” and on “River”.
The genius of Morricone here is the music is designed to serve the film well, and it does. But the music can also stand very well on its own, and has done so, in the concert hall and in popular music. It should be noted that Morricone’s wife Maria wrote the Latin texts for the choral pieces in The Mission. I find it odd that The Mission is only ranked #23 on the list of greatest film soundtracks of all-time as ranked by the American Film Institute. On purely musical terms, I would rank it higher. The answer may lie in the film itself, which has never really embedded itself into the public consciousness as much as some of the others such as Star Wars, The Godfather, Gone with the Wind, Psycho, E.T., Jaws, etc. Interestingly, of the top 25 film scores, The Mission is the most recently composed in 1986. Perhaps the quality of films AND the quality of film music have seen a general decline in recent decades. Just a thought.
Regardless of ranking, The Mission imprints itself indelibly on the mind. I would also put his score for Cinema Paradiso up there as well, though that is a conversation for another time. I hope you have enjoyed this installment of Building a Classical Music Collection.
Have a great week!
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Notes:
Ennio Morricone Was More Than Just a Great Film Composer, The New York Times. July 8, 2020.
Golding, Dan. Why the music of 'The Mission' is more enduring than the film itself. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Online at abc.net.au. January 16, 2020.
"Morricone biography". Onlineseats.com. 25 February 2007. Archived from the original on 24 November 2011. Retrieved 12 December 2011.
Sweeting, Adam. (2001-02-23). "The Friday interview: Ennio Morricone | Film". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 2012-03-07.
https://www.afi.com/afis-100-years-of-film-scores/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ennio_Morricone