Never has an oboe sounded more mournful or a drum more evocative than on The Mission soundtrack. Ennio Morricone's outstanding score to the film starring Jeremy Irons and Robert DeNiro about Christian missionaries in South America has taken on a life apart from the film, though it remains essential to the movie's impact. As he showed with his music for Spaghetti Westerns such as Once Upon a Time in the West and European cinema starring the likes of Jean-Paul Belmondo, Morricone adds an intrinsic layer to the viewers' appreciation of The Mission as a film.  

Personnel: Ennio Morricone, David Bedford (conductor); The London Philharmonic Orchestra, Barnet Schools Choir, Incantation. Recorded at C.T.S. Studios, London, England. Original score composed by Ennio Morricone. Ennio Morricone is one of the most celebrated composers of modern cinema, largely known as the man who invented what's known as "Spaghetti Western" music, but as his score for THE MISSION bears out, he's a diverse artist capable of much more than twangy guitar and desert soundscapes. Exotic percussion, timeless-sounding choral voices and delicate string and woodwind orchestrations mark Morricone's soundtrack for THE MISSION. One of the most striking qualities of this score, which Morricone conducted in addition to composing and orchestrating, is its spiritual quality, but it's not the distant spirituality of gothic cathedrals and impersonal icons. Aided by stirring orchestral passages, these pieces touch the listener in a much more tactile, personal way, providing a sensory link between the earthly and the divine.