Ennio Morricone and volatile memory
Ennio Morricone and that strange thing called memory. Indro Montanelli he was not only one of the most acute intellectuals of the last century, he was an Italian who knew well our vices, many and indisputable and our virtues, rare but unique. He once he wrote that "the Italians have no memory"And perhaps never a sentence sums up the Italian essence in the best possible way. Modernity, with its frenzy, with its ultra-fast times like the optical fiber that guides our connections with the whole world, almost naturally pushes us to burn everything immediately.
But we must not exaggerate. There are events, people, characters who have marked a day, a year or even a historical period, which have influenced our life, our choices, our tastes. Events, people and characters that have marked our existence, giving it joy and thrills of emotion that, even decades later, are imprinted on our skin and in our minds. And this cannot be forgotten, it must not be forgotten.
Pain and Homage ...
It was the July 6 2020 when the death of the Maestro Ennio Morricone. A pang in the heart. In that moment millions of people, scattered in the four corners of the world, it is as if they had lost their North Star. That light that for decades had given them the feeling that the Big music could be listened to, enjoyed, made their own even by those who did not know it, even by those who had never been able to distinguish the different notes placed who knows with what logic on those strange lines called the staff, it was gone forever.
The great emotional wave for that very painful loss has really overwhelmed everyone. Politicians too. The then mayor of Rome, Virginia Rages, after the vote of the Capitoline Assembly, he announced: "Today is a historic day. We wanted to pay homage to Maestro Morricone by renaming the Auditorium Parco della Musica into the Ennio Morricone auditorium". These are the words of him. Unfortunately, not everything went as the first citizen of Rome had foreseen.
…Betrayed!
For the Morricone family, for Maria Travia, his inspiring Muse and mother of his four children, was the best news that could be received, after so much pain. A few days ago one of the Master's sons, John Morricone, wanted to testify, in an interview with the newspaper La Repubblica, how much the composer's family is deeply disappointed by what has been achieved by the Capitoline administration: "Dad could never even dream of the title. But when we saw the plaque that they dedicated to him, the way it was made, and the absence of his name on the Auditorium website ... a feeling of regret was awakened in the family " (Source La Repubblica).
“Auditorium Ennio Morricone” only on paper
On the Auditorium website there is no reference to the title of Ennio Morricone and that plaque then ... "It has a title ("Auditorium - Parco della Musica", ed) while my father's name is reduced to a subtitle. The same is never indicated online. It is as if the Sinopoli room were called the "great room", with the name of the master reduced to a subtitle. It is not so". (Source La Repubblica). And in certain moments the words of his father when he spoke of "victory born of one's own defeat”, When generations of musicians considered his music the daughter of a lesser God.
Ennio Morricone he succeeded in the double, extraordinary undertaking of creating music that was an indispensable component for films, but which could then be listened to, enjoyed at any time of the day and of our life. That was his big win. That the capital of Italy is not stained with such a lack of respect and a disfigurement to the memory so volatile in many, but, Fortunately, not in all.
Article written by Stefano Vori
