Oomoog the Ecstatic

"I love all music. Even the old fashioned stuff sometimes, you know, like 90s R&B." -Professional artists

I wasn't trying to imply I thought any of them are bad composers, I just wouldn't include anyone out of obligation to their influence or importance.  I would list those whose music is personally important to me.

And here's the full movie already uploaded on YT, by the director himself! I love JW's main theme... So fitting, so perfect! 😂
 
 

You know that one guy, Jeffy?
 
 

You know that one guy, Jeffy?
 
 

The opening measures of this sound awesome (till 0:36):
 

The whole opening is breathtaking, but this statement at 1:08… jeez.
You can almost see the USCSS Nostromo gliding through space.
 

Which brings me to: 
 

At 2:23. So sad and bleak. Perfect score for a perfect movie.
 
And, since we're here:

From 0:43 onwards. Those scattered high piano notes get me every time.

31:09 - 32:12 Some of the best-orchestrated bars of classical music in existence!
 

Ned Rorem - The End of Summer for Violin, Clarinet, and Piano
 
Carry me off on waves of dissonance.  I especially love the piano here.
 
(2:06 - 2:33)
 
It contrasts well with the lovely lyrical section that follows.

I agree with you there about the importance of ranking nuance. Though I wonder if they might've believed asking for ranks would give too much societal pressure, ie. "What? you think x composer is better than Bach and Beethoven?" so the composer being polled would just put these two 1st as to not cause embarassment or overthink it, having this fake/societal fear of being viewed incompetent. Even better would be to make their ranks unknown/anonymous to the public, so they might stay true to their personal rankings. Non-rank didn't seem to make the list more true/interesting anyway, it still yields popular composers in the top: Bach, Stravinsky, Beethoven, Mozart.
 
Many of us have a tendency to want to put the popular go-to choices higher than our own favorites, to sound "objective." I'm openly honest about my praise of Borodin and John Williams over other composers. That's why I'm on this forum, because music is subjective and based in evolutionary biology. If we wanted Beethoven's opinion on the best composer, he wouldn't say "Beethoven," so why would Williams do the same; it's up to every individual to decide their favorites. Hopefully others think a similar way about their favorites, making ranking preferable in gaining a better overall census. Even within John Williams, we can't all agree on the best pieces.

I don't have the magazine issue to see what their methodology was, but @Borodin is correct that asking for a top 10 or 20 results in much more arbitrary lists than a top 5 (especially if the list has to be ranked). This is known by survey methodologists. 
 
As @publicist wryly noted above, there is a lot of obfuscation in statistics. Rather than a simple list of composer names, I bet the frequency distribution would be far more revealing because it will show the distance between one rank and the next, and that distance is often where the interesting story lies. For instance, if #1Bach and #2Stravinsky and #3Beethoven are each separated by one vote and then #4Mozart is separated from #3 by 20 votes, that's more significant than third consecutive one-vote difference.
 
I also assume that composers were asked to name their top 5 choices without regard to rank; in other words, the BBC treated all five composers named by someone as equally "top." In his mind, JW might see Beethoven as slightly more important than Bach, but to the BBC methodology, the two composers are identical in value. If this is not the case, then we're missing information about how each of the five names from each respondent were weighted before being aggregated.
 
This is probably how we can have Chopin at #20 with only 9 votes--all the votes are piled up on the higher-ranking composers. But that raises the question of how the bottom 30 composers in that list can be distributed among 8 degrees of freedom. Assuming no weighting, there would have to be a lot of shared ranks (e.g., five composers each getting 7 votes, eight getting 6 votes, that kind of thing). In such a case, like I said, a frequency distribution would be much more informative.

Nah. It only makes sense to ask for peoples' favorites in any list: People give much more personal weight/accuracy towards just their favorites, and Top 10-20 would be way too much to expect composers to quantify, as most composers don't even think about Top 10 or have that information handy or care about it. It would be inaccurate to poll that information. Most people know for sure their personal favorites and that's it. It would be silly to assume a composer in someone's 6 7 8 spots would not be represented, because lots of people already chose that composer for their top 5: Wagner, Debussy, Ravel, Stravinsky, some may go with Mozart or Beethoven as their #6, all good choices for modern composers, and they are all definitely here on this list. To recommend polling for 6, 7, 8 spots, is only recommending that you want it less accurate, asking for unknowns that composers haven't clearly thought about. 
 
Making a Top 50 out of top 5s is perfectly fine as a demographic, showing which composers were nominated more. As much as everyone has a criticism towards this list, by logic everyone in the world disagrees with any list because it's not their own list, so there's no argument here. Just because you find a few people who sometimes agree with you about your criticisms, doesn't mean you're objectively right. In reality this list is fine, for the purpose it accomplishes: showing all the highest recommendations of professional composers. Everyone, including the polled composers, is going to personally disagree with the list because it's not their own personal list, it doesn't mean it's flawed.

It's neat that we're starting to be able to see and appreciate how history will remember Williams. 

.

In an October survey conducted by the BBC, with responses from top composers such as John Williams, Steve Reich, John Adams, Eric Whitacre, Danny Elfman, John Corigliano, Michael Nyman, Carl Jenkins, Gabriel Yared, and 165 other major living composers today, John Williams tied Schumann and Rachmaninoff for 50th place in the Greatest Composers of all Time, surpassing many of the biggest icons in music history. Each participant was required to vote for the 5 best in history, and the results were totalled and ranked. Williams didn't vote for himself of course, but voted for Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Haydn, and Mozart. 
 
Someone posted about this survey earlier today, but the headline was only about Williams's picks. Not quite proper for this forum: Williams surpassed many of the greatest names in perhaps the biggest modern professional survey on Classical ever done, something for the books! All top 50 composers were written about in the article by some of the composers who specifically selected them. It is a magnificent article to read and absorb. Here are the Top ranked 50 as posted in the BBC article:
 
1. Bach
2. Stravinsky
3. Beethoven
4. Mozart
5. Debussy
6. Ligeti
7. Mahler
8. Wagner
9. Ravel
10. Monteverdi
11. Britten
12. Sibelius
13. Messiaen
14. Bartók
15. Shostakovich
16. Haydn
17. Saariaho
18. Brahms
19. Reich
20. Chopin
21. Vaughan Williams
22. Schoenberg
23. Gesualdo
24. Janáček
25. Schubert
26. Gershwin
27. Glass
28. Ives
29. Prokofiev
30. Lutoslawski
31. Cage
32. Tchaikovsky
33. Berg
34. Feldman
35. Varèse
36. Webern
37. Byrd
38. R.Strauss
39. Verdi
40. Elgar
41. Birtwistle
42. Knussen
43. Sondheim
44. Stockhausen
45. Satie
46. Tallis
47. Hildegard von Bingen
________________  
Each receiving the same number of votes:
48. Boulez
49. Schumann
50. Rachmaninov
51. John Williams
Interchangeable rank
_______________
 
Congrats Maestro, on making the Top 50!  
 
 
An article on the BBC Survey in Dec 2019's Magazine: http://www.classical-music.com/news/js-bach-greatest-composer-all-time-say-today-s-leading-composers-bbc-music-magazine
Dec 2019 BBC Issue with full article purchasable here: https://www.zinio.com/gb/bbc-music-magazine-m2404

In an October survey conducted by the BBC, with responses from top composers such as John Williams, Steve Reich, John Adams, Eric Whitacre, Danny Elfman, John Corigliano, Michael Nyman, Carl Jenkins, Gabriel Yared, and 165 other major living composers today, John Williams tied Schumann and Rachmaninoff for 50th place in the Greatest Composers of all Time, surpassing many of the biggest icons in music history. Each participant was required to vote for the 5 best in history, and the results were totalled and ranked. Williams didn't vote for himself of course, but voted for Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Haydn, and Mozart. 
 
Someone posted about this survey earlier today, but the headline was only about Williams's picks. Not quite proper for this forum: Williams surpassed many of the greatest names in perhaps the biggest modern professional survey on Classical ever done, something for the books! All top 50 composers were written about in the article by some of the composers who specifically selected them. It is a magnificent article to read and absorb. Here are the Top ranked 50 as posted in the BBC article:
 
1. Bach
2. Stravinsky
3. Beethoven
4. Mozart
5. Debussy
6. Ligeti
7. Mahler
8. Wagner
9. Ravel
10. Monteverdi
11. Britten
12. Sibelius
13. Messiaen
14. Bartók
15. Shostakovich
16. Haydn
17. Saariaho
18. Brahms
19. Reich
20. Chopin
21. Vaughan Williams
22. Schoenberg
23. Gesualdo
24. Janáček
25. Schubert
26. Gershwin
27. Glass
28. Ives
29. Prokofiev
30. Lutoslawski
31. Cage
32. Tchaikovsky
33. Berg
34. Feldman
35. Varèse
36. Webern
37. Byrd
38. R.Strauss
39. Verdi
40. Elgar
41. Birtwistle
42. Knussen
43. Sondheim
44. Stockhausen
45. Satie
46. Tallis
47. Hildegard von Bingen
________________  
Each receiving the same number of votes:
48. Boulez
49. Schumann
50. Rachmaninov
51. John Williams
Interchangeable rank
_______________
 
Congrats Maestro, on making the Top 50!  
 
 
An article on the BBC Survey in Dec 2019's Magazine: http://www.classical-music.com/news/js-bach-greatest-composer-all-time-say-today-s-leading-composers-bbc-music-magazine
Dec 2019 BBC Issue with full article purchasable here: https://www.zinio.com/gb/bbc-music-magazine-m2404

I think Bruce Broughton is closer to my musical ideals. Nonetheless,
 
Ideal Williams moment 
1. Helicopter theme from Jurassic Park
2. When Yoda's Theme plays in Rebel Fleet / End Title
 
Ideal Williams track
1. Star Wars: Main Titles
2. E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial: End Credits (the intro and the build-up from 1:14 - 1:33 is incredible. Best 'credits reel or opening' music)

This is a good thread topic even though it may be an oft-repeated one.
 
I for one think the issue of Williams's creativity is largely misunderstood. All the best music throughout time tends to be based on craft and not invention. But is Williams a major creative contributor? He has a knack for taking a lot of best ideas from past composers (albeit sometimes subconsciously) and making something much more cohesive and listenable. This is the very philosophy that music doesn't need to be composed with notes, as in previous note-combinations discovered by people, but that music can now be composed using a palette of whole ideas previously discovered by people, a palette to invent a new sound and craft, with Williams this is often achieved by a rather lofty and light type of passion, packed full of timeless themes written more effectively for this genre, a real sense of movement and rhythm, a sensitive imagination and appreciation for how music always makes us feel during a story. I think this is becoming more and more true, when a composer like Williams has a difficult-to-mimick ability to string old ideas into something so effective in both catchiness and telling a story, it can be said that he is a true innovator. He's able to 'classicize' these newer concepts, no longer inventing standalone concepts like previous composers, but inventing a new way of how to put these concepts together more beautifully and lastingly.
 
This all comes down to the final aim--creating an aesthetic that is more big-picture and complete. Some might say this can only be achieved within Classical structure. Most composers however, aren't to embrace this perfection in music, but embrace expansion. Expansion gets the feelers and imagination fired up, while composing 'perfect' music is a tedious, pain-staking task. But as I said, all the best composers throughout time were crafters. They painstakingly aimed for this higher aesthetic.
 
It seems, those who take the comparative approach will critique Williams for not being original, while those who take a personal approach listening without bias might really enjoy his music and orchestration as achieving a kind of thematic program perfection, sounding better than his direct influences, having substance and a special emotionality to it that is much more weightless and intangible. Individuals, if they choose, can step back from the notion that more obvious areas within a work need to evolve, as Williams evolved his music in many subtler ways like Mozart did with classical. No one was saying Mozart's greatness was about threading together a new era and interpretation, he moreso was about writing epic classical music and amazing melodies of which the foundation was already there. Williams in the same fashion wrote the most catchy themes for film in the past century, sometimes with great style developing out lesser composers' themes. Being a composer is also altogether not necessarily about originality. In Stravinsky's famous words about great composers stealing, valid composition can be about combining different ideas to give great reformation to a school of thought. Williams didn't attempt to stab at Korngold or his contemporaries--instead he took lots of influences of contemporary film and revisited older composer philosophies, like Mahler did with Wagner. It seems there are different interpretations to what people desire from new composers, originality or improving on what's there? Being a good composer can simply be about writing good music hands down, in a new combination. Williams made some upgrades in the quality of his musical approach and orchestration from his direct contemporary influences, so if a composer's quality is about simply great-sounding music, he might fit that bill also.

This is a good thread topic even though it may be an oft-repeated one.
 
I for one think the issue of Williams's creativity is largely misunderstood. All the best music throughout time tends to be based on craft and not invention. But is Williams a major creative contributor? He has a knack for taking a lot of best ideas from past composers (albeit sometimes subconsciously) and making something much more cohesive and listenable. This is the very philosophy that music doesn't need to be composed with notes, as in previous note-combinations discovered by people, but that music can now be composed using a palette of whole ideas previously discovered by people, a palette to invent a new sound and craft, with Williams this is often achieved by a rather lofty and light type of passion, packed full of timeless themes written more effectively for this genre, a real sense of movement and rhythm, a sensitive imagination and appreciation for how music always makes us feel during a story. I think this is becoming more and more true, when a composer like Williams has a difficult-to-mimick ability to string old ideas into something so effective in both catchiness and telling a story, it can be said that he is a true innovator. He's able to 'classicize' these newer concepts, no longer inventing standalone concepts like previous composers, but inventing a new way of how to put these concepts together more beautifully and lastingly.
 
This all comes down to the final aim--creating an aesthetic that is more big-picture and complete. Some might say this can only be achieved within Classical structure. Most composers however, aren't to embrace this perfection in music, but embrace expansion. Expansion gets the feelers and imagination fired up, while composing 'perfect' music is a tedious, pain-staking task. But as I said, all the best composers throughout time were crafters. They painstakingly aimed for this higher aesthetic.
 
It seems, those who take the comparative approach will critique Williams for not being original, while those who take a personal approach listening without bias might really enjoy his music and orchestration as achieving a kind of thematic program perfection, sounding better than his direct influences, having substance and a special emotionality to it that is much more weightless and intangible. Individuals, if they choose, can step back from the notion that more obvious areas within a work need to evolve, as Williams evolved his music in many subtler ways like Mozart did with classical. No one was saying Mozart's greatness was about threading together a new era and interpretation, he moreso was about writing epic classical music and amazing melodies of which the foundation was already there. Williams in the same fashion wrote the most catchy themes for film in the past century, sometimes with great style developing out lesser composers' themes. Being a composer is also altogether not necessarily about originality. In Stravinsky's famous words about great composers stealing, valid composition can be about combining different ideas to give great reformation to a school of thought. Williams didn't attempt to stab at Korngold or his contemporaries--instead he took lots of influences of contemporary film and revisited older composer philosophies, like Mahler did with Wagner. It seems there are different interpretations to what people desire from new composers, originality or improving on what's there? Being a good composer can simply be about writing good music hands down, in a new combination. Williams made some upgrades in the quality of his musical approach and orchestration from his direct contemporary influences, so if a composer's quality is about simply great-sounding music, he might fit that bill also.

Anyone else miss Cherry Pie That'll Kill Ya?

Just the Helicopter part of Jurassic Park. Probably the most epic thing Williams has written--a notch higher than the SW Main Theme in both epicness and orchestration.
 
 
I've repeated numerous other Williams moments over and over again, but none as much as this. 
 
For different movies, my most-repeated moments:
Hook: 2:40-3:25 in Main Themes, so much phenomenal orchestration
Star Wars V: The Yoda's Theme part of the End Credits track
Harry Potter and the Prizoner of Azkaban: The gliding over the water part in Buckbeak's Flight, 0:50-1:20
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets: The first big crescendo beginning of Reunion of Friends
E.T The Extra-Terrestrial: A few great moments, too lazy to list...

YOL(isten)O

Just the Helicopter part of Jurassic Park. Probably the most epic thing Williams has written--a notch higher than the SW Main Theme in both epicness and orchestration.
 
 
I've repeated numerous other Williams moments over and over again, but none as much as this. 
 
For different movies, my most-repeated moments:
Hook: 2:40-3:25 in Main Themes, so much phenomenal orchestration
Star Wars V: The Yoda's Theme part of the End Credits track
Harry Potter and the Prizoner of Azkaban: The gliding over the water part in Buckbeak's Flight, 0:50-1:20
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets: The first big crescendo beginning of Reunion of Friends
E.T The Extra-Terrestrial: A few great moments, too lazy to list...

Raisins. Do you eat them? Voluntarily? Do you have them in your pantry?