Lewya

I don't know why, but apparently it seems like he doesn't like Williams. Gary Kurtz said this at a Star Wars convention.

The Newell comment was news to me, I haden't heard that one, please post the video or quote it if you can find it. I am also interested what other directors, gritty ones, are saying about him. I think googling a director's name + interview + john williams can work to help find some. Edit: Oh, and I just remembered Terry Gilliam's comment: “John Williams is a great musician but, wow, enough John. It isn’t his choice, of course, it’s the directors who allow him to take over a film and tell you exactly what you should be feeling every second of every minute of the film.”

Another one I just remembered: Paul Thomas Anderson mentioned that he loved listening to John Williams as a teenager and that his collaboration with Spielberg influcenced him.

David Lynch reportedly didn't want to direct Star Wars: Return of the Jedi because John Williams was involved according to producer Gary Kurtz. I am sure it wasn't the only reason why he didn't want to do it, but it was a part of the reason. Francis Ford Coppola praised Catch Me If You Can. Guillermo del Toro praised the Catch Me If You Can score too. Can you think of any more comments from directors on Williams and/or his scores? Help and post more. I am interested to know the ones I might have missed/don't know of. Excluding all of the directors Williams has worked with here, because that is obvious stuff.

Outside of Spielberg, the most prestigious movie Williams has ever scored is probably one of the Stone's - Born on the Fourth of July maybe or The Long Goodbye. The Long Goodbye in particular seems to be praised as a masterpiece and one of Robert Altman's best films (top 5 at least, but often top 3). For me it is The Long Goodbye as Williams's most prestigious movie outside of Spielberg if I had to pick just one above the rest. There hasn't been anything since as prestigious as it for Williams. Born on the Fourth of July and JFK are high up on the list otherwise.

He either turned down or couldn't do Agora. The director said he offered up the movie for Williams to score.

Agreed.

The new Jóhannsson is out.

Oh, I missed that. Haven't heard that album you mentioned. Anyway, just 2 days left for it to come out.

Four samples from his upcoming score The Mercy (which is out in 2 days) are out: http://www.deutschegrammophon.com/en/cat/4798303 It sounds pretty good, hopefully it is better than The Theory of Everything at least...

Hoodoo Zephyr - John Adams I am not the biggest fan of Adams, he is more of a composer I respect than enjoy in general - like most living top contemporary composers in other words. He has done some works that I enjoy though. This piece of work I perhaps surspringly (it is a minor work and very different from the usual Adams) prefer over a number of his latest disappointing concert works like the saxophone concerto to mention one of his weakest works. It is nothing great, but it is Adams having fun and it shows. I like it.

Meh, I am guessing Williams will arrange Bernstein then, but neither him doing it nor the project itself excites me.

Alex Ross, probably the finest music critic around says Williams deserves to win:

You are correct. This sums it up pretty well I think: "His concert music — Boston Symphony players were the soloists in movements from his concertos for oboe, horn and tuba on Saturday evening — suffers from the same problems: not a lack of surface detail but a persistent vagueness, a structure that is assured and tight in the big moments but loose elsewhere." I agree with that critisism and that is probably the main reason why I struggle to get into most of his concert music. Sure, they are played sometimes, but I would argue that that's more because of Williams's fame as a film composer rather than the quality of the pieces themselves. That doesn't mean they are bad, it is still professionally crafted, but it won't become a part of the repertoire in that way the great composers's pieces are, they might get picked up by some players as somewhat esoteric items that are played sometimes because they want to play something by one of the most visable composers of our time like they sometimes are now.

I just remembered this one from way back - Osvaldo Golijov (interview from 2008): Williams's most striking recent achievement is in Golijov's estimation is Munich (2005), where Williams "approaches the score as a young person", using ouds and Middle Eastern street music in ways "new and subtle". Golijov regards Williams as a master who combines high inspiration with great craftsmanship; he says that placing Williams next to his colleagues in film music is like comparing Mozart to his now-forgotten contemporaries.

I thought it would be interesting to collect what other composers think about Williams and/or his scores in this thread, I am particularly interested in concert composers. I will share one I just found, Aaron Jay Kernis, a Pulitzer prize winning composer said this about Williams last year in an interview (about The Force Awakens): As it happens, Kernis had just taken his son to see "Star Wars," whose music was written by Williams. Unprompted, Kernis volunteered that the score was "fantastic." That's where the conversation started, before turning to today's landscape and Kernis' own artistic concerns. Question: What was so good about Williams' score? Answer: I felt like he was back to his old powers. I tend to assume that he has an army of assistants, and there are some scores where I felt I heard that more, where he had written really good opening music — "Catch Me if You Can" I felt had fantastic opening music — but the rest was more nondescript. This one had an operatic through line. Quality was maintained. David Lang, another Pulitzer price winner: Lang admits to a certain excitement about the release of the new Star Wars movie The Force Awakens. “What makes that movie so great is John Williams. The core of that experience, the reason why it’s a multibillion dollar empire, the reason why it has captured the imagination of billions of people for the last forty years or however, is because of John Williams. That music makes that movie and makes that franchise revolutionary. “And Jaws is a very exciting score,” he continues, “that score is also operatic, because of its use of motifs. It has little things that tell you this is when to be scared and every time you hear this you are going to be scared. It really does treat the movie as if it is a giant epic which I think is a very powerful way to do it.” Osvaldo Golijov (interview from 2008): Williams's most striking recent achievement is in Golijov's estimation is Munich (2005), where Williams "approaches the score as a young person", using ouds and Middle Eastern street music in ways "new and subtle". Golijov regards Williams as a master who combines high inspiration with great craftsmanship ; he says that placing Williams next to his colleagues in film music is like comparing Mozart to his now-forgotten contemporaries. Please help and post others.

I find him a bit difficult to rank in the contemporary music scene, but I have to say that I don't find most of Williams's concert music compelling even if it is professionally crafted, a few of his pieces are exceptions that prove the rule. I wouldn't rank Williams in the top of contemporary composers based on his concert work alone that's for sure. Near the top yes, the craftmanship alone puts him there, but not in the top. Glass, Reich, Adams, Adés, Golijov etc have all composed superior concert works - without a question, and then I am not even the biggest fan of them. I prefer Williams's ouvre as a whole over almost all contemporary, living composers though, but the best of them are obviously more intellectual, diverse, interesting and innovative etc than Williams. There are only a few living names I would mention over Williams as a whole, but if we only look at pure concert music, then it is more than just a few as I said, then I would take quite a few more over Williams, perhaps somewhere around two dozen or so names ahead of Williams, some of them I already mentioned. Unless Williams steps up and write some truly compelling concert work, it won't change I am afraid. Ultimately, I think Williams will be regarded as a brilliant populist film composer, one of the best ever, who also wrote some concert music. The latter will be more of a curiosity though, and none of his concert pieces will become a part of the repertoire.

As Thor said, much of Goldsmith comes to mind.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi by far in both categories.

1. Star Wars: The Last Jedi 2. Phantom Thread 3. The Shape of Water 4. Dunkirk 5. Three Billboards

Agreed on Phantom Thread and Hostiles - two good scores, especially Phantom Thread which is clearly the superior effort of the two.

My wrong, I meant from 2000 to now, not from 2001. So Gladiator is fine to mention. Hannibal is one I need to give another listen to, I can't remember it well enough.

Which are Hans Zimmer's top 10 scores of this century so far? My top 10: Gladiator Inception The Last Samurai Interstellar Blade Runner 2049 Man of Steel The Da Vinci Code Angels & Demons Rush Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End I consider Gladiator, Inception, Interstellar and The Last Samurai much superior than the other six scores (all four scores would make my top 10 of all time Zimmer scores, the six other scores would not). The four weakest ones on the list are Blade Runner 2049, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, Rush and Man of Steel. The Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons are in the middle. The Batman scores are his most overrated efforts of this century.

Naotora: The Lady Warlord by Yoko Kanno was the best score of the year: The runner up is Star Wars: The Last Jedi by John Williams. Other than these two top picks, there were only other scores which had one or a few cues in an otherwise nowhere near as satisying whole. Overall, it was a weak year, there weren't that many scores that I cared for, especially not as a whole outside of a track here and there. I thought both Dunkirk and Blade Runner 2049 were OK, but not what they could have been, especally not Blade Runner which is by far the biggest missed opportunity of the two. I expect the upcoming Greenwood score to make my top 20. There is also an unreleased Hisaishi score that could be good. As usual, nothing Pemberton or Burwell did impressed me - neither did Wintory even if he did some solid work. Giacchino did fairly weak work as usual, his Apes being his most OK effort of 2017. Desplat had a solid year, but none of his scores were compelling outside a few cues here and there. Composer of the Year goes to Ryuichi Sakamoto if we are allowed to include his none film score work as well seeing his album async was one of the best albums of the year, otherwise it would have to be Kanno or Williams if we only are allowed to count score work.

The young French director Xavier Dolan had this to say about The Post: "Well, there’s the perfectly fun and thrilling score by Williams" when he picked The Post as one of his 8 best movies of the year. Otherwise, as expected, Greenwood's score for Phantom Thread get mentioned by most directors (2). One director mentioned the Blade Runner score as well. http://www.indiewire.com/2017/12/directors-best-movies-tv-2017-guillermo-del-toro-denis-villeneuve-luca-guadagnino-1201911679/2/