Cuore di Mamma

2008 fifteen CD set, the most complete anthology ever from the Italian master composer, released to coincide with the maestro's 80th birthday. This 15 disc set includes only original versions of his best works grouped into seven different categories, all selected by Morricone himself. The discs include: Music For Cinema (nine CDs containing 168 of his best themes in chronological order), Music For Television (two CDs containing 38 themes), Contemporary Classical Music (one CD containing 18 tracks), Original Songs (one CD containing 18 songs he composed for well-known Pop artists), Orchestral Arrangements (one CD containing 16 of his best arrangements) and Hit Song Arrangements (one CD containing 16 Pop hits he arranged in the '60s for Italian artists including rarities, remixes and more).

This two-disc anthology assembled by Mike Patton is, after the spaghetti Western soundtracks and themes, essential Morricone. Never has his music from the strange films he scored in the 1960s and '70s been showcased in such an original and powerful way. Patton has looked closely into the experimental nature of the maestro and found plenty here to offer as well as to crow about. Many of the scores he chose from would be known only to cineastes of minor and obscure Italian films. Yet, Patton understood that Morricone loved his own process and treated crime and exploitation flicks like L'Anticristo and Forza G with the same delightful sense of adventure that he approached The Godfather and The Mission with. Here, all manner of strangeness is on offer: from psychedelic guitars and tripped-out wordless vocals to sitars, layers and layers of percussion, acid-drenched strings, an Echoplexed celeste, toy pianos, psychotic operatic voices in chorus, and more.