Morricone’s score for A Fistful of Dollars has been contrasted with older Western scores, often heralded as the first to break out of the pattern of classic Western film music. Before 1964, the accompanying scores to Western movies were “grand sonorities” of old Hollywood, which were characterized by full orchestras and dramatic symphony-like movements. The “bleak, brutal soundscapes” that Morricone created with guitar, whistling, and percussion introduced a new sound to be featured as the backdrop for these violent, action-packed films, set against scenery that showcased the barren nature of the American West. (Gore, 1997, 57-60).

To demonstrate the drastic difference between “pre-Morricone” and Morricone’s music, take a look at the videos below. The first is the theme from Michael Curtiz’s 1961 film, The Comancheros, starring John Wayne, and the second is the title theme from A Fistful of Dollars.

Scored by Elmer Bernstein, this piece of music heavily uses strings (violins, cellos, violas) and brass (trumpets, trombones, and tubas) to create a lively, action-filled theme that easily sounds like it could be accompanied by images of running horses or a gunfight. It is a fast-paced, heavily-textured song that uses the power of a quick tempo and strong dynamics to represent the action and drama of the film. (IMdB, “The Comancheros”). This type of orchestration can be heard in many other early Westerns, such as The Magnificent Seven (1960) and How The West Was Won (1962).

Alternatively, Ennio Morricone’s theme for A Fistful of Dollars begins with just a guitar and a whistled melody. Morricone introduced light percussion, as well as sounds that imitate a whip or the reins of a horse. The score features some quiet vocal chanting at the end of phrases, and soon after, a guitar picks up the melody. Next introduced are some strings and chorus vocalization but the guitar and whistling become more of a background sound during those portions, keeping with the very uncrowded instrumentation. The guitar/whistling melody remains the focus of the theme, and even though the percussion, chanting, and whip sounds continue, the music sounds very thin-textured compared to the full orchestra heard above.

The recognizable whistle became so associated with this film and Morricone’s scores, that many isolated recordings of the whistle are available. The video below features Alessandro Alessandroni, a musician who performed for Morricone’s score, performing the melodic whistle and a simple guitar part. Recognizing the tune from only this whistle indicates the iconic nature of the score, as well as the thin-texture of the music, since the isolated whistle is still so representative of the theme as a whole.

Morricone’s style, which depended on a thin-texture, using mostly guitars and whistles, emphasized the barren scenery of the West. His music matches so well with the settings shown on screen, and creates a “soundscape,” which provides cinematic depth that helps an audience suspend disbelief and fully immerse themselves in what’s happening on screen.(Gore, 1997, 57-60). Morricone has scored over 500 movies in his lifetime, but his first collaboration with Sergio Leone has stood the test of time and remains memorable to Western audiences everywhere. His score for A Fistful of Dollars was so distinct from every other Western score up until that point, that the differences between the music of early Westerns and Fistful may have been part of what’s made this theme stick out in the minds of moviegoers.

Images/Video Courtesy of:

JokerRecordings, YouTube

xman77c, YouTube