John Williams Classic or Dud

Conducting: Classic, according to my friends who have sung when he's conducted the Boston Pops. I have not yet had that priviledge, sigh.

As Interview Subject: SCREAMING DUD. "In 'Jaws', I started out the main theme in the low strings because it sounds menacing, then as other instruments come in I pick up the tempo and volume to give a sense of urgency." Oh, WOW. I never would have figured that one if you hadn't told me. Could you talk down to the public a litte more, I think it's going over their heads.

I completely forgot about John "Boring" Williams' early work. I retract my previous blah-blah.

Being a conductor must be the best job ever! I like how they go in and out of the door in the back, and everyone applauds! Man I would jsu stand next to the door and go back and forth all night long, and everyone would just keep clapping! What I would give to hear someone yell "hey the conductor sucks" at some point. Especially at Symphony Hall in Boston-in that classic accent!

A landmark birthday for ILX's most irrationally loathed film composer:

http://mubi.com/notebook/posts/john-williams-80

John Williams is very good at writing film scores. Good film scores must be subservient to the needs of the film, and to whatever is happening in the story where the music is inserted. Like most composers of scores, he freely borrows from earlier composers and their works, or he bases his work on their styles. Much like JS Bach borrowed freely from himself or other composers, so that's not much of a rap against him. It does make him very eclectic, though, and emphasizes his ability as a mimic over his ability as an original artist.

The big problem I have with film scores is that they tend to be so fragmentary, much more so than music written for stage works, with the possible exception of incidental music for plays. This makes it very hard for me to appreciate John Williams's musical talents in comparsion to composers for the concert hall, chamber music, opera or ballet - iow, just about all the composers around. He's jammed into such a specialist's niche it is hard to know what to think of him in any larger context.

His score for the Tintin movie was pretty fun.

This is old news but has it been discussed over here how he ripped off two of the most memorable Star Wars mottifs?

Imperial March - My Woman (this one was also sampled by White Town)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fi7NdeGxRt0

Main Theme - Kings Row
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V47enEvsafQ

And Jaws - Dvorak

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPAxg-L0xrM

I don't think "My Woman" has the same exact melody as "Imperial March", but Chopin's "Funeral March" has, that's where Williams borrowed it from:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyFyAqLtHq8

The Jaws thing is less obvious, I think, because the "borrowed" bit is so common... (I think there's a composition by Sibelius that also has the same motif?) In Dvorak's New World Symphony it's just a minor part, the bit you hear in that Youtube clip is the only time in the whole symphony when you hear those chords. So at least you gotta credit Williams for recognizing how to put it to good use.

As for "King's Row", that one is new to me, but I think it's mostly the orchestration Williams borrows, I'm not hearing the same melody?

So yeah, undoubtedly he borrows/steals/whatever from older classical composers, but so what? None of the original compositions are going for the the same effect Williams' tunes do, so he's still using the source material to do something new.

you can hear whence Wmz nicked a particular part of the Star Wars theme towards the end of the second movement of Boccherini's String Quintet in F Major, Op. 20 No. 3

what makes you so sure he knew that piece?

I guess the "Rebel Fanfare" is the part I'm thinking of?

xpost sorry, I shouldn't have said he nicked it - it's just a very similar bit

JW's borrowings are overstated IMO. He's never done anything as flagrant as Horner's lifts (and I like Horner a lot of the time). Idk, JW is basically a genius. His fluidity with past styles can be distractingly uncanny, though. I sometimes find it unmooring to hear prokofiev Mendelssohn and strauss blended so smoothly.

happy birthday! 90!

And as good a day as any to remember how late I learned his dad played drums in Raymond Scott's Quintette.

Inspired by the "Ennio" doc I was going to watch the John Williams doc on Disney, but then I saw some of the talking heads: JJ Abrams, Chris Martin, Seth MacFarlane ... I hope it's not all chumps like these chumps.

94 years old today! Amazing.

apparently he composed and conducted the DISCLOSURE DAY soundtrack at age 93???

i have seen him conduct his music a few times over the past 5 years or so. he is spry. last time he was in a wheelchair but who among us, etc

He's a composer god among men, and I saw a lot of people comment that "Disclosure Day" was one of his strongest in years, but I'll be darned if it made any sort of impression on me. Not that he has anything to prove to anyone, and it for sure wasn't bad or distracting. I'd have to see it again, but dunno when that is in the cards.

yeah, I saw disclosure day last week and as the credits rolled I thought oh wow, the old guy is still at it

if i'm not mistaken, he's still composing his scores with piano, pencil and paper and without a computer, digital audio workstation or any of the digital tools that everyone else in hollywood uses to sync their compositions to films with split-second accuracy. it's mind-boggling. heroic even.

I think I mentioned it upthread somewhere, but it blew my mind when learned his dad was in Raymond Scott's band. That's super cool.

He’s got some cool early credits as a session pianist too

if i'm not mistaken, he's still composing his scores with piano, pencil and paper and without a computer, digital audio workstation or any of the digital tools that everyone else in hollywood uses to sync their compositions to films with split-second accuracy. it's mind-boggling. heroic even.

You are mistaken. Williams may well contribute his work with pen and paper, but this work will absolutely begin after tempo maps and hitpoints have been prepared by assistants, and will precede transcription, orchestration, and placeholder MIDI prints by other assistants. There is quite simply no world where any composer receiving Williams' budget, especially not one at the age of 93, is flying solo; to suggest he's working without a DAW or "any of the digital tools" creates an image that the man is doing his charts by hand? it's simply not the case.

The credits for The Fabelmans, for example, include two music editors and a staff of five on music preparation (including a head). I would imagine that a scene would be tempo'd out by the department, with starts and endings and hitpoints all established, and composer would be instructed as to what is required of them, and the themes emerge with composer at the piano with an engineer present (and recording everything), and this material is subsequently rendered to DAW and to Dorico/Sibelius. It's a lot of work but Williams isn't Elliott Carter, here-- scores at this level are team efforts, and I type this without diluting the validity of the authorship-- it's a Williams score but he absolutely is not working "without a computer"

thanks for that clarification, fgti

Ya sorry for the protracted typing but as a sometime score preparer it does sometimes smart— Williams even employed a steady, regular orchestrator through his Imperial era

Dumb question, but is this often done for the sake of efficiency/expediency, because they are on a Hollywood clock and bleeding money?

I posted this funny anecdote on the Randy Newman thread about scoring "Toy Story":

Montan also enjoyed Newman’s playfulness in the studio. “Right before starting a cue, he’d begin talking to the musicians, and he knew that made me nervous because we’ve got like ninety-five or a hundred musicians and every minute costs us,” he said. “Randy would go through these jokes and sometimes look my way and make fun of all the money he was wasting… ‘fifteen thousand, one-hundred, fifteen thousand, two-hundred,’ and the musicians loved it.”

It has less to do with a "Hollywood clock" and more to do with any concept of teamwork-- some composers (myself, on most films) have to do the tempo sync and hitpoints and editing and orchestration and musician hiring and engineering and mixing all by one's lonesome-- on certain budgets I play all the instruments myself to save money. If ever I were to get more than 80k I would hire an assistant, and more than 120k I would hire two. It's about expectation and good budgeting. Music editing, in particular, is really fucking arduous and annoying to deal with when I really just want to be working with musical material. The amount of bucks that a studio will pay Williams, Elfman, Zimmer or Desplat mean that these dudes have a studio with regular teams of workers-- maybe not Williams, at his age and career arc, I'd imagine he's mostly closed up shop, but knows who to call when Spielberg needs him

Has he ever been given a movie that is cut around his pre-recorded score? It's a little funny that smashmouth can basically force multiple movies to match the rhythms of all star but lucas will nix jub jub on the re-release and make him come up with a new thing.

I'm sure Williams has a team of people making things happen after he writes a theme these days, but I listened to this podcast that had some interesting tidbits about the process: https://www.20k.org/episodes/john-williams-1

How back in the day he had a highly developed sense of musical time vs absolute time, and could fit music to picture intuitively.

Has he ever been given a movie that is cut around his pre-recorded score?

There was also an anecdote about JW having trouble making it work to the climactic scene in E.T. and feeling strongly that the music was right, so Spielberg recut the scene to fit the music (which they made clear, like, never happens).

Nix Jubjub, Star Wars drag queen

there are many parts in JFK where it feels like Oliver Stone edited to the music rather than Williams composing for the film.

but i suppose somtimes the best film scores simply feel that way no matter the process.

*sometimes

feels like Oliver Stone edited to the music rather than Williams composing for the film.

that's the mark of a good composer

i think "the social network" is a rare example of a major studio film that was largely (if not completely) cut to the music rather than the other way around

Ya sorry for the protracted typing but as a sometime score preparer it does sometimes smart— Williams even employed a steady, regular orchestrator through his Imperial era

i take for granted there are orchestrators involved no matter who the composer is at that level. but yeah, thanks again, corrections/clarifications always appreciated here.

(fwiw, i went thru a two-year film scoring program at ucla extension, and the idea of williams as the lone non-daw, non-computer holdout was canon in that program. i can't say i'm surprised to learn the reality is quite different.)

This is all very interesting, thanks!

Iirc, didn't Leone often cut to Morricone's score?

There are many examples of composers producing work prior to the edit-- Glass in particular is famous for this iirc.