Man on a mission

摘要

THE THEME may have been written well over half a century ago, but in less than three minutes you hear everything that came to matter most to him in a lifetime of composing. There is the two-note howl at the Moon-once heard, never forgotten. Musically, it is that rare fusion of heart and mind and as recognisable, in its way, as the opening notes of Beethoven's 5th Symphony. Then there are the classic musical motifs, like those Richard Wagner scattered through the "Ring" cycle, that mark out the good man, the bad and the ugly. And then there is the freewheeling range of sounds with which he chose to make that music: the whistling, the yodelling, the gunfire and the squeaky ocarina, an ancient Italian wind instrument that looks like a sweet potato and is better known to a younger generation as the soundtrack of a Nintendo video game.