Musica per una fine
K-array breathes new life into a hidden masterpiece from 20th-century Italian greats
When a forgotten piece of music by composer Ennio Morricone featuring a magnetic tape recording of poet Pier Paolo Pasolini was unearthed, K-array and SZ Sugar embarked on a historic journey to revive a masterpiece from two of the greatest creators in 20th-century Italian culture - and share it with the world.
Florence (Italy), 14 January 2026 – The spellbinding moment in which Maestro Ennio Morricone’s music intertwines with the words of Pier Paolo Pasolini, performed live for the first time by an orchestra in the evocative setting of the Teatro Verdi in Florence, is captured in a unique new documentary: “Musica per una fine”. A special project by the globally renowned manufacturer of audio technologies, K-array, curated by WE RAD, the documentary is now available online with free access.
“Intelligence will never carry weight, never / in the judgment of this public opinion (…) every idea is unreal, every passion unreal”. The work opens with these stirring words, spoken by the late poet Pier Paolo Pasolini, as the renowned late Morricone’s music enters—clear and gentle—embracing the listener in a feeling of profound completion.
Conceived by Andrea Torelli of K-array and Anna Leonardi of music publishing house SZ Sugar in a meeting of minds, the documentary recounts the story of this special project and goes behind-the-scenes of the first live performance of the choral and orchestral version of the piece. A journey through art, sound, and memory, the composition is performed by the musicians of the Orchestra della Toscana and the voices of the Harmonia Cantata Choir, conducted by Raffaele Puccianti, live at the Teatro Verdi in Florence.
Bringing together two giants of twentieth-century Italian culture in Morricone and Pasolini, the work comes alive through images, emotions, and the testimonies of those who made it possible. The documentary concludes with moving words of gratitude penned in a handwritten letter from Maria Travia, Ennio Morricone’s wife.
The documentary is the first episode in the “Beyond Sound Towards Meaning” series, a cultural sharing program that invites audiences to rediscover sound as a universal language. The series will explore the role of sound as meaning, delving into the artistic and ethical values of works while technology remains invisible. Care and responsibility, truth and delicacy are the principles that guided K-array in restoring the essence of Morricone’s work and the value of Pasolini’s text, allowing people to fully experience their important cultural legacy.
“When we were given the opportunity to take part in this project, we immediately felt deeply moved by what it represents,” said Andrea Torelli, Marketing Director at K-array. “We soon realized that it was not at all distant from the context in which we work every day—it touched us profoundly. Faced with such an important artistic message, we could act as the medium through which this work might reach a new audience. The ‘end’ referenced in the title should not be understood solely in a negative sense, as the end of what unites us today amid many conflicts, but as an appeal for a necessary new beginning, through the language of culture—which is not a luxury, but a right and a responsibility.”
The composition by Morricone is structured as a score for a mixed four-part choir and orchestra, combined with a tape recording of a text by Pasolini taken from his poem “Gli italiani”. “Accustomed cowardice, used to seeing others die in the most atrocious way, with the strangest indifference,” declares the poet, striking with his stark analysis of the Italian people. The undeniable civic value of the poem is reaffirmed today in a national and international context that is different, yet equally tense and conflict-ridden. Bringing it back to light by enhancing its lucid content is an artistic and historical gesture of impact, not intended to be celebratory or absolving.
The piece originally appeared in the end credits of the soundtrack composed by Morricone for the film “Pasolini, un delitto italiano” by Marco Tullio Giordana (1995). It was Morricone himself who extracted this segment, which then went on to live a life of its own. Upon closer listening, the work reveals the coexistence of the Maestro’s two artistic souls: the cinematic one—present in the first instrumental section, evocative and narrative in nature—and that of absolute music, in the second part, constructed as a psalm for choir and orchestra.
It is a perfect example of the dualism that characterized Morricone’s artistic life: from music for the screen loved by the public, to pure, experimental, and structural compositions, which earned him critical and academic recognition. “Musica per una fine” is one of the rare works in which these two sides of Morricone unite, a reconciliation which makes it an artifact of extraordinary value.
WATCH the documentary on the dedicated K-array Beyond Sound website: https://beyondsound.k-array.com/musica-per-una-fine/
Photo credits: K-array
