Il Grande Silenzio [Original Motion Picture Soundtrack]

Morricone was far too prolific and full of ideas to keep all his Western soundtracks for Sergio Leone. He also worked with Sergio Corbucci on the wintry, bleak Il Grande Silenzio, the filmmaker’s deliberate break with convention after a string of hits like Django. Morricone’s long working relationship with Corbucci allowed him to take a similarly iconoclastic approach to the Western score, leaning on icily sorrowful compositions (including “Invito All’Amore,” an early dalliance with the melodies that would later become his signature composition “Chi Mai”) that traded out gunslinger heroism for the contemplative, spacious ghostliness he’d use to similar effect in his giallo and suspense-film scores.