Has anyone ever managed to make a harmonica sound as grim and foreboding as the harmonica-wielding gunman who stalks the Old West in Sergio Leone’s 1968 classic Once Upon a Time in the West? No.

Academy Award-winning composer Ennio Morricone, who left an indelible musical imprint on film genres as varied as "spaghetti westerns" and epic gangster dramas, died on Monday in Rome at the age of 91 ...