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.