Live music: Ennio Morricone

3Arena, Dublin

The music of Ennio Morricone stands at the crossroads between populist and esoteric, gaudy and avant garde.

The composer became iconic by dint of his work with spaghetti western auteur, Sergio Leone: the opening trill and crackle of The Good, The Bad and the Ugly is surely one of the most evocative pieces of music of the past 60 years — impossible to listen to without experiencing a vivid flashback to Clint Eastwood scowling beneath a cowboy hat.

But Morricone was always more than simply a composer of cheesy, baroque Western soundtracks, as this epic celebration of his career testified.

If you took anything away from the evening, it was the sheer scale of his work, from the glistening beauty of ‘Gabriel’s Oboe’ (from the score to The Mission and subsequently repurposed by every Irish wedding string quartet) to the stomp and flutter of his Once Upon A Time In America theme.

Aged 86, Morricone was a surprisingly commanding presence.

With his back to the audience, he guided a truly vast ensemble: 86 orchestra players and a 76-strong choir.

The swoop and sweep of the production emphasised the reach of his writing — excerpts from The Battle of Algiers and Cinema Paradiso benefitted from kitchen-sink production values, as did The Good The Bad and the Ugly, illuminated by the anachronistic presence of guitar and bass.

One slight drawback was the tendency of Morricone’s best-loved pieces to thoroughly overshadow his relatively obscure moments.

This off-puttingly made the performance feel like a ‘greatest hits’ revue in which the chart-toppers were deployed sparingly.

Devotees will have been thrilled to hear The Good The Bad and The Ugly — and yet disappointed at the omissions of a Fistful of Dollars and the gorgeously woozy ‘Man With A Harmonica’, from Once Upon A Time In The West.

Or, perhaps, they checked their preconceptions at the door and took the concert for what it was; a grandstanding victory lap by one of the most influential composers of the 20th century.