Morricone remains prolific. He spends most days writing at his Rome apartment. He takes a month off each summer but ends up composing anyway, working for an hour or so every morning. "When I do have free time, my concern is: will I ever be able to write again? But this is normal. There is a tenor singer I knew who used to wake up every morning convinced he no longer had a voice. So I keep going because the function fuels the organ; the work creates the work."
Does he have any thoughts of retiring? "Would you like me to retire? Actually, I already have. I receive my state pension and I pay taxes on my earnings. But nobody told me I had to stop working when I receive my pension."
It's taken a while for me to realize that this haughty old man, this Caesar of film music, is having a sly laugh at the expense of the rather earnest foreign journalist. I ask him if he has any unrealized ambitions. He almost smiles. "Of course. I would like to be the chess world champion. But perhaps I will have to wait until I'm reborn for that."
RSS