“Williams’s music was fresh, vital, exhilarating, and passionately symphonic. With full blown, nearly endless wrap around themes and melodies, the composer single handedly re-invented the Hollywood Sound, ushering in a new era of golden, melodic motion picture music.”
From Steve Vertlieb:
For several years I was in discussions with writer/director Robert Tinnell to put together a history of motion picture music for possible filming. When Bob began teaching a film studies class for young students of The Factory Digital Filmmaking Program at The Douglas Education Center in Monessen, Pennsylvania, he asked if I’d be interested in writing a brief history of both the art and history of scoring for motion pictures to be presented to his class as an entire evening’s lecture. After several months of conversation, research, and writing, the massive end results of our collaboration were presented to his students “live,” via telephone speaker phone within the classroom, along with carefully selected musical extracts to be presented at precise intervals. The lecture, presented on the evening of May 4th, 2011, was an enormous success with the students…especially considering that it had been commissioned and written especially for them. In the months that followed I’ve considered expanding the three hour lecture, and presenting it on line as a formal introduction to the meaning and significance of music in the movies. I’m happy to announce that the results may now be viewed at the popular media website, The Thunder Child, and are available for your willing perusal at the musical link displayed below. These comments are not not offered as a definitive representation of the art of motion picture music but, rather, as a sublime overview of what constitutes much of the most beautiful symphonic music written during the twentieth century and beyond. I want to thank both Bob Tinnell and his wonderful students for allowing me to offer this presentation to those with eyes to see…and with ears to hear.