A Gun for Ringo (Una pistole per Ringo), film score

• Date: 1965
• Composer: Ennio Morricone
• Period: Modern (1910-1949)

Review

European filmmakers began making Westerns around 1960 because the younger generation of directors had had plenty of opportunities to see classic American Westerns during their formative years after World War II. They were attracted to the mythic quality of the genre. In West Germany, the Winnetou films, a popular series based on the German-language Western novels of Karl May, broke the ground, but it was in Italy that the "spaghetti Western" became an ongoing tradition in the 1960s.

Ennio Morricone virtually created the musical world of these Westerns. Best known for his collaborations with director Sergio Leone, he composed his first Western scores for the mediocre films Duello nel Texas (Gunfight at Red Sands) and Le pistole non discutono (Guns Don¹t Argue). Then came his big break, Per un pugno di dollari (A Fistful of Dollars) (1964), made with Leone.

Duccio Tessari¹s film A Gun for Ringo does not reach the heights of the Leone films, but it is a vast improvement over the early spaghetti Westerns. Morricone, who orchestrates his own film scores, here extended his wildly original sound made of up isolated lyrical lines, often played by solo instruments. Action scenes tend to rely basically on percussion, to which is added a piano bass and often guitar or electric bass. The portions of this film score that have been released on CD convey the exciting quality of a major new talent virtually reinventing the sound of Westerns. ~ Joseph Stevenson, Rovi

Albums with Complete Performances of the Work

Title	Date
Death Rides a Horse/Pistol for Ringo/Return	1995
The Legendary Italian Westerns

Albums with Excerpt Performances of the Work

Title	Date
Ennio Morricone at the Movies: The Classic Film Themes	2001
Ennio Morricone: Un Film, Una Musica	1992
Ennio Morricone: Western Film Music	2001
Morricone: Western [CD + Book]	2007
Romantic Strings, Vol. 7	1998
The Fabulous Film Themes [Box Set]	2012
The Music of Ennio Morricone
The Soundtracks: 75 Themes from 53 Films	2007
The World of Ennio Morricone	2007

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