JWScores

I would place some of them in the same category as the opera overtures (e.g., Flight to Neverland, the Star Wars theme, the Superman theme, the Raiders' March). Others are more akin to "orchestral songs" (e.g. Yoda's theme, Luke and Leia, Leia's theme), as they are often in song form (some symphonic adagios are in that form as well, by the way). The more extended ones, like Adventures on Earth or Excerpts from Close Encounters, can be likened to small tone poems.

In no particular order: John Williams: Home Alone Hook Jurassic Park Schindler's List Sleepers Star Wars ep. I - The Phantom Menace Angela's Ashes Ennio Morricone: The Legend of 1900 Michael Nyman: The Piano David Arnold: Stargate Independence Day James Horner: The Rocketeer Legends of the Fall Braveheart Titanic Jerry Goldsmith: Total Recall Basic Instinct First Knight The Mummy Don Davis: The Matrix

Music lovers and musicians get to certain conclusions by listening to the music and/or by studying it. Music critics, before getting to the same conclusions, need to read the (in this case, excellent) biography of the composer.

No. The Secret of the Sahara, by Morricone.

I think it doesn't fit the music style of what SW was before the sequel trilogy, and what I grew up to love. See, the music of the prequels is in a different style compared to the original trilogy, but I find that they blend together very well. The music of the sequels, of which Rey's theme is a paradigmatic example, sounds to me as much less inspired (melody, harmony, lack of those stunning ideas that the music of both the OT and the PT is full of...). In the context of the music written by JW for Star Wars, I think it's one of the weakest themes - or, let's say, of the least remarkable themes. (I also dislike the film, but I was not referring to that) I agree, but this is not in contradiction with the above!

Yeah, you see? From the third picture it's clear that even Daisy didn't like the theme that much.

My least favourite JW theme, in relation to the context, is certainly Rey's Theme. Yes, Rey's Theme.

Consider that "maestro", in Italy, is the generic formal way to address anyone with a conservatory degree, when you are not on a first-name basis with them. Any professional member of an orchestra, pianist, conductor, or composer is addressed in the same way. If what you heard or read is true, it is likely that he meant it in this way, without implying any additional dose of "respect" that might be attached to the English use of the term.

Then you should not trust ANYTHING that comes out of an AI. Try to ask it for the sources. You will find that, in most or all cases, it will produce references to books or articles that do not exist. References that were just obtained by assembling words in a way that is "likely" to be formally correct. Yep, that's correct. I already knew these statements and, as much as I love Morricone for his music, I think he completely missed the target here. I suspect he never really listened to the Star Wars score without prejudices. But that's not the point. The fact is: now that you have the source, you can read the context, and for example you will get that the second quote comes from a lecture he was giving together with Sergio Miceli at a school on film music in Italy around year 2000 (in one of those collected lectures, he mentioned he was mixing Canone Inverso). So, this was an oral statement meant for an audience of students, like a teacher talking to a class, that was then transcribed and published in a book; he probably didn't think or know that it would be published afterwards. And by the way, the other lecturer (Miceli) immediately said to the class that he disagreed with his view, and explained why he thought that JW's choice was perfectly fine. The first statement, if I recall correctly, comes instead from the biography written with Alessandro De Rosa few years before his death, and in that case he certainly tried to soften the initial judgement. Knowing of this situation (and of the criticism he received for disparaging the Star Wars score), when he received the Oscar for The Hateful Eight and in his speech he mentioned "the esteemed John Williams", I read this as an attempt to make peace and to put to rest the controversy. The fact that Morricone was not thrilled about tardo-romantic / leitmotivic scoring (despite recognizing the merits of John Williams) is clear from his work itself. On the other hand, in an interview that can be found on youtube, he was once asked who were his favourite composers among his colleagues. He mentioned Herrmann, Goldsmith and Williams (in this order). It must mean something. Where is he mentioning John Williams specifically? I've heard the exact opposite from all the people who have worked with him. He didn't like being called "maestro" at all. However, I have no first-hand evidence of this.

I don't want to sound harsh, but you are not "doing research". As you say (and as is obvious after reading just a couple of lines), you are asking AI. Whatever comes out might be complete nonsense. Doing research aims to establish that something is true and something else is not, and for this it is crucial to examine real sources in a critical way. What are the sources for those declarations by prominent composers? I advise anyone to stop flooding the internet with AI-generated "research". I once asked (just for fun, of course I knew the answers) for what movies JW has won Oscars, and it gave me wrong answers - one being, I remember, Sergeant Ryker. Just to give you an idea.

From what I gathered from interviews and books, he had - for a large part of his life, even long after he had become a well established composer - a sort of fear complex about job insecurity, despite his success. For this reason, he often accepted to score films that weren't exactly top notch, fearing that if he said "no" too often, at some point all those offers would stop. Add to this that not all directors are like Steven Spielberg, and when they are not, the composer often has to make compromises. If the director asks for a pop score and the movie calls for it, you cannot give them The Mission, even if you would be able to do that. Another thing that I've noticed is that he was often sincerely supportive of movies that 99.9% of viewers would find dreadful. So, maybe some of the movies that most of us are perplexed about... were actually good and worthy in his view!

Yes, that's how he managed to write 10 to 20 scores per year during his activity peak. Consider that many of the movies that he scored did not require a wall-to-wall, scene-by-scene music commentary like a Spielberg movie. And also that he typically had a much more limited budget for a film than JW. He sometimes had 2-3 days to record a complete score. And no orchestrators. Their difference is exactly why I love them both and I consider them complementary. Williams puts his originality in the harmonic language (first and foremost), which is highly informed by late romanticism, impressionism, 20th century Russian composers, and jazz; on the top of this, he adds some contemporary avant-garde techniques (Penderecki / Ligeti). Besides this, his treatment of the orchestra is pretty standard - designed to work and be effective. Morricone is a very different animal. His music is what you would expect from someone who has deeply studied the Baroque period, and then jumped to Mahler, the neoclassical period of Stravinsky, and the Second Viennese School, ignoring everything that happened in between. It's not infrequent to find dodecaphonic techniques or, on the other hand, real fugues and canons in Morricone. And when you listen to him, you never think about Debussy or Richard Strauss, while it's nearly impossible to think about Bach or Frescobaldi when you listen to JW. That very strange (I would say weird) combination of influences and background is what gave Morricone's music its unique sound. In that, and in the various styles that he invented within that, I agree that Morricone is more original than JW. But JW is more interesting, and some would say more effective, when it comes to harmonic concatenations, especially those intended for dramatic effect. Also, since most of his scores are wall-to-wall, he developed a way of elaborating and varying his themes symphonically that is almost totally absent in Morricone's scores. It's fascinating that they are both so good while being so different. I didn't suggest it precisely because it's kitsch

I'm not familiar with Sahara, actually - I saw the movie, don't remember anything that particularly stood out in the score. But I am a great fan of the trilogy of desert scores that I mentioned. Not every cue of every score is strictly necessary, of course, and if you listen to them all you will find several recurring ideas. For me, that's part of the fun: seeing how he created a certain type of "desert sound" and varied on the main ideas in three different scores. "Il principe del deserto" is probably the least well-known of the three. That was for a miniseries that went so badly that a selection of it was assembled into a movie (Beyond justice) a few years after the opening just to give another try, and the movie went awfully as well. The quality of the score has nothing to do with that, although it is not as great as that for "The Secret of the Sahara" (another miniseries btw - and not too bad storywise, although very much "from the 1980s"). Besides the main themes, which are very good but somehow don't add anything terribly new to the table, I love cues like "Il nonno" (= the grandfather, who happens to be the ruler of a desert tribe) and the very dissonant, but very atmospheric "Sguardo nascosto", "Riflessione sulle radici" and "Sola, nuda". It's all on Youtube.

I certainly recommend the 3 main "desert scores": Secret of the Sahara (1988 miniseries, also recommended by @Tom Guernsey , and not to be confused with Sahara): perhaps my favourite score of his. All the choral cues are superb, particularly the title track (stay away from the song arrangement "Saharan Dream" and go with the first track, choir + orchestra and solo bass flute), the track "Red Ghost", and "The Mountain". The latter was actually composed for The Bible many years prior, like "The Golden Door", but went unused in that occasion for contractual reasons that are well described in the biographies. It became well known worldwide after Tarantino used it in Inglorious Bastards. As a small curiosity, the cue "Kerim" was partially but very noticeably cited by Zimmer in Gladiator (last section of The Battle). Il deserto dei Tartari (1976): beautiful from the beginning to the end, but particularly notable for the track "Il deserto come estasi", which is one of the most mystical things he ever wrote. Il principe del deserto (1989 miniseries, then turned into the film Beyond Justice). Those three scores are all beautiful and have some features in common: atmospheric use of choir + strings, the bass flute, a certain type of meditative cue with solo tuba(s) whose best example here is "Il deserto come estasi" but whose concept comes back in "Second Dedication" from Secret of the Sahara; similarly, "First Dedication" has some elements in common with "Ninna nanna per un'insonnia" from Il principe del deserto. If you like that kind of sound, here you get 3 examples which define Morricone's archetypical writing for the desert, which I think was one of his strengths.

You must either mean Korngold's or Messiaen's Turangalila (which is not really a symphony).