Composing for the Cinema ─ The Theory and Praxis of Music in Film

With nearly 400 scores to his credit, Ennio Morricone is one of the most prolific and influential film composers working today. In Composing for the Cinema, Morricone and musicologist Sergio Miceli present a series of lectures on the composition and analysis of film music. Adapted from several lectures and seminars, these lessons show how sound design can be analyzed and offer a variety of musical solutions to many different kinds of film. Drawing upon scores by himself and others, the composer also provides insight into his relationships with many of the directors with whom he has collaborated, including Sergio Leone, Giuseppe Tornatore, Franco Zeffirelli, Warren Beatty, Ridley Scott, Roland Joffe, the Taviani Brothers, and others. Delivered in a conversational mode that makes it both comprehensible and interesting, the intertwining of analysis with practical details of film music composition makes this groundbreaking work unique.

Ennio Morricone has written scores for nearly 400 films. In 2007 he received an honorary Academy award for his significant contribution to the art of film music, the only composer to be so recognized.

Sergio Miceli is an Italian musicologist whose many analyses, particularly of Morricone’s scores, have established film music as a major artifact of the 20^th century.

Gillian B. Anderson is an orchestral conductor and musicologist who has reconstructed the scores for over 40 pre-1929 classic films and performed them with orchestras and at film festivals around the world.