He was a composer born in Rome, Italy, who formally entered into musical education during the difficult years of WWII, when he would often go hungry. He studied trumpet, composition, choral music and choral direction at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia.
Although he thought he would always compose modern classical music his direction was changed when he was invited to write something completely new to him, which were arrangements for Italian popular songs. He began writing music for the movie industry in 1961 alongside his other classical compositions and arrangements in order to supplement his income.
From 1964 he wrote the scores for over 400 films including all the films of Sergei Leone, who had previously been a class-mate, and composed over two dozen scores for an Italian Mafia TV series.
He received Academy Award nominations for the scores for the films Days of Heaven, The Mission, The Untouchables, Bugsy and Malena. In several instances his wife, Maria Travia, who he married in 1956, has provided lyrics to accompany his works. He also wrote many works for television and saw chart success in the UK when his “Chi Mai”, which was the theme to “The Life and Times of David Lloyd George” made it to No. 2 in 1981.
His compositional style was very different to many of the other composers of film music, especially in Hollywood, in that he never used a professional orchestrator and even on complete scores he wrote everything himself in longhand. Aside from his film music his compositions also included chamber music, concerts, cantatas and a requiem and the two could be heard together at concerts that were presented by him all over the world.
Many other artists including Celine Dion, Metallica, Hugo Montenegro and John Zorn have recorded his compositions and the virtuoso cellist Yo-Yo Ma produced an album of his “classics” with the Rome Sinfonietta Orchestra.
The winner of many awards including BAFTAs and Golden Globes, he was given an honorary Academy Award in 2007 “for his magnificent and multifaceted contributions to the art of film music”.
As a teacher he taught at the Linicio Refice Conservatory in Frosinone, Italy, in 1984 he founded the Institute of Research for Musical Theatre and in 1988 the Gruppo di Recerca e Sperimentazione Musicale.
He died at the Universita Campus Bio-Medica from injuries that happened after he had a fall. He was 91 years old.
BBC recordings
Chi Mai (Theme from The Life and Times of David Lloyd George) (UK 45)
Come Maddalena (UK 45)
Sources: