untouchables

Why film-music conductor commonly get a head-phones together with musicians when working in recording session? Is it indispensable only in recording?

best conductor: Claudio Abbado, Karajan, JW. pianists: Thelonious Monk, Herbie Hancock; most jazz!

My favorite still ET, J. Park and the Terminal...JW has done his best there!

Found it! Thanks a lot. I'm only halfway through the thing and am already loving it! haha Hilarious guy indeed. I read that his reputation isn't the best... Maybe he's the one writing as untouchables! http://www.scena.org/columns/lebrecht/0211...L-williams.html You din't think for instance that some Harry Potter themes are "clichés" from Paul Dukas: L'Apprenti sorcier!?

Literally, they only talk about Superman and the Boston pops arrangements. They put scenes form the other movies what Alexander Courage collaborated with Williams, but they dont say what did he do or didnt do. And since they put the 'love theme from superman' scene from Superman IV, Williams could be talking about that movie where Courage clearly arranged his themes... BTW in the other thread, you said Herbert spencer was responsible of the Williams sound till JP, whom he died. Now its alexander courage in the same period. So whose is the sound, Spencer, Courage or Williams? I'll pick the latter, being the connection-common factor between the three... Nice point!; maybe a guy like Miguel Andrade can answer, or it can be both orchestrators of same works! Curiously In Courage imdb page they only mentionned: Jurassik Park- Fiddler on the Roof-Hook- Poseidon Adventure http://french.imdb.com/name/nm0006021/ J. Goldsmith was one of the rarest man who insist in putting the name of orchestrators in his albums- for instance Rudy 1993, you may read Orch. by A. Courage and A.Morton! However I can't say that Courage is responsible for all JW sound, I love JW sense of Jazz in works like Eiger Sanction or The Terminal which I think it's his own!

Some clashes were noted when fans and spectators want to attend the latest Morricone Concert in March. Indeed it was regarded as rare event not to miss!-but no seats at the end ; it became a free concert. http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=oV7oCEH89kk Morricone en Chile play Cinema Paradiso http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=ViuAq8PLo4s

In this rare interview dedicated to Alexander Courage ; the man discuss his collaboration in creating the Hollywood sound http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=jivgYgSmSmc part 2 : discuss JW A. Courage relationships and orchestration role in such work like Empire of the Sun, Jurrasic Park, Star Wars; Return of the Jedi, Home Alone http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=jwtNxH8QCJA His Star Trek tv theme still one of my favorite of all time !

Maybe London or Spain- Canada is more closer to NY than LA!

At least did Spielberg never think to invite him in his holyland /holy soul :Tel-Aviv??

He has given concerts outside of the US. He was in Japan, and he did several concerts in London in the 80s. Didn't Morricone refused to do international concerts until recently? Morricone did concerts since 80s. He just refused to go to US after 9-11, but finally did it last year. After Jarre (2005), Morricone (2006), Barry (2007), I guess that John Williams would be the next guest of Auxerre international film music festival. but he would surely reject it

Hi there; You don't think that is time to launch petition in order to call williams for serious World-tour exactly like his colleagues (Goldsmith-Zimmer, Morricone-Jarre..)! The man has many fans in the continents, why he never gave an outside concert while doing go-and-back from Boston to Hollywood bowl twenty times per year?! There is a considerable number of film music festivals outside America. thx

Thank you all for your participation, especially Miguel Andrade; I'm also big collector of John Williams, even concert pieces which I love too; However I feel some sympathy for those orchestrators whose names are not credited in the movies which use the score. as I stated, contribution is different frrom composre to another, I don't imagine that williams has the same assistance like a guy as Zimmer! Zimmer was also sued by the owners of the copyright of Holst for Gladiator. ------------ This is taken from a rare Morricone interview -1995- Asker: Why do you always orchestrate your own scores? Do you believe that composers who do not orchestrate are shortchanging either the music or the film? Morricone: I don't want to get into delicate professional questions. However, I will make a simple declaration. Composers in all epochs and all ages, except perhaps this one, for film and other contemporary musical practices, have always written out their own music. I cannot understand why one who calls himself a composer does not finish his own music, and thereby give the final and definitive touch to his composition. This stems from the era of musical theater, where composers hired arrangers to write out the music because either they did not know how, or were too lazy, or because of the excessive workload. Throughout the history of music, no composer has had his score written out by someone else. So why does this occur in film music? I do not understand.

Williams is not so prolific as Goldsmith or Morricone, maybe an average of 2 scores by year- does he really need orchestrators for lack of time or just technical support? I'm amazed to find that many well-known orchestrators are just self-taught persons: Nic Rain or Michael Kamen!

How many fans do/did know that Herbert Spencer and Morton were behind John Williams sound? What's about his concert-pieces?, in this case I think he is the sole creator of those works.

I'm sure that the man is TOTALLY able to orchestrate his own stuff, I don't blame him but Hollywood process-working! I agree with "heretics" like B. Herrmann!

I personally consider orchestration as at least 50% of a music-work ! You fans, this the main man who was behind John Williams sound ( Superman-The River - Return of the Jedi -The Witches of Eastwick- Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom - Presumed Innocent - Home Alone ...) Herbert Spencer (1905-1992) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_W._Spencer Morton Stevens

Nice article that would highlight the job of orchestrator in film music; the few composers who do all the job of scoring are B. Herrmann, Morricone, G. Delerue, Rachel Portman, John Barry in his early works! There is indeed a different kind of orchestrations and contribution, I'm big fan of Maurice Jarre and I read in a french interview that he consider orchestration an important part of composing but he just use orchestrators like his friend Christopher Palmer only as assisstant. ---------------- The role of the orchestrator remains an ambiguous one to many film music fans, largely because the dimension of their creative input varies from composer to composer. In the case of classically trained composers, orchestrators do not generally contribute anything creative. However, with the kind of schedules composers face in Hollywood, it is often necessary to employ assistance. A composer like Jerry Goldsmith for instance, although he "sketches" his cues, every creative detail is provided in these sketches--instrumental groupings, dynamics, and indications for all the notes. It is just written in a kind of compressed "shorthand," perhaps with some occasional verbal instructions. Such sketches however are not really useable as a conductor's score. Also, since film scores are often written in a hurry, a composer's handwriting may not be as neat as it could be. Therefore, an assistant is usually needed to take the composer's sketches and transfer it to a full score. In a sense you could think of it as "paint by number," with the composer writing "blue" or "red" on the canvas, and the orchestrator coloring it in (of course it is a bit more detailed than that but you get the idea). Sometimes an orchestrator may make a suggestion which the composer has not thought of and the composer will use it. Some composers also may grant the orchestrator leave to add his own touches to the score. The orchestrator is also useful assistant to the composer. In transferring the composer's intentions to full score, the orchestrator might catch mistakes (which a composer might make in the rush to meet a deadline). The orchestrator is also the only person other than the composer who knows exactly how the score is supposed to sound, and it can help to have him in the recording booth (if the composer is on the podium) to monitor the recording. Predictably there have been a number of cases where composer and orchestrator have diverging recollections of who thought up what, but generally composer/orchestrator relationships are loyal and longstanding. Jerry Goldsmith and Arthur Morton have worked together now for over thirty years and are the best of friends, while John Williams had a long collaboration with Herbert Spencer. Using an orchestrator is not an indication of any lacking ability on the composer's part--"concert" composers like Sergei Prokofiev, Aaron Copland and John Corigliano all used orchestrators for their film music. In the late '50s, the Universal music department was thoroughly exasperated by the young Jerry Goldsmith, because he did not understand how to sketch--he kept giving the orchestrators complete scores! There are of course composers whose expertise does not extend to orchestration. Some self-taught composers do not write fully detailed sketches, thus requiring the orchestrator to use more initiative. However, I should point out that there are a number of self-taught composers (for instance Shirley Walker and Michael Kamen), who are fully capable of orchestrating their own works and provide complete sketches to the orchestrators, and even write in full score when there is time. (Kamen orchestrated his scores for Brazil and Highlander, for instance.) An entertaining and informed insight into Hollywood orchestrating can be found in Andre Previn's book No Minor Chords: My Days in Hollywood. On orchestrating for Hugo Friedhofer, Andre Previn says "I felt like I was stealing" when he orchestrated for Friedhofer, since Friedhofer's sketch contained every last detail, and there was nothing creative for Previn to do. He also provides amusing anecdotes on composers who could not orchestrate, like Herbert Stothart (who one day leaned over to Previn from the podium and said "Young man, did I write this?") The following information is based on comments from composers and orchestrators, examinations of their music and watching them work, and is, to the best of my knowledge, accurate. There are a number of composers who, as a rule, write (or wrote) in full score, without working with an orchestrator. They include Bernard Herrmann, John Scott, Ennio Morricone, Georges Delerue Rachel Portman and John Barry in his early work. Composers who do work with orchestrators, but provide complete detail in their sketches would include Jerry Goldsmith, John Williams, Christopher Young, Bruce Broughton, Basil Poledouris and John Barry in his later work. (All of these composers, I should point out, have also composed scores which they completely orchestrated themselves.) The rest http://www.filmscoremonthly.com/articles/1...strators_Do.asp 2008 would be the year of orchestration !!

Herrmann left Hollywood to London in mid 60s, and Morricone limited his assignments with american productions for that hard process condition in making the whole score; despite his last score "Mission to Mars" was fully written and arranged by him in hollywood brand style with NY Symphony orchestra! Indeed, if I'm not wrong Herrmann and Morricone are from the rarest musicians who insist showing the phrase in screen "composed, arranged and conducted by.." while others only put composed by or composed and conducted by.. Anyway, this an article on how Hollywood composers are working: "There is a simple answer that may have been overlooked. Morricone, like many of the great artists behind the camera, won't work by committee. He works solely with the director. American films aren't made this way any more. The auteur system in America is essentially over. Even Martin Scorsese is hired by Leonardo DiCaprio and not the other way around. I spoke briefly with Elmer Bernstein in 1994 and this was his response to my question about how work was going: "I've got five kids coming over to my house tomorrow to listen to the music I've done for this film. It's the director and the producers. None of them know anything about my previous work nor anything about me. They're not the sons and daughters of the previous Hollywood regime but the sons and daughters of accountants and investors. If one of 'em says while listening that they don't like it, I'm out. They'll just get somebody else. They don't' care. So don't ponder why Morricone won't work in America. Ponder why he would. And then ask why did David Shire had to wait so many years to be asked to work on a major film again. And why Bruce Broughton didn't score 3:10 TO YUMA. What, so TOMBSTONE wasn't cool enough? ... Hollywood where most of 'em wouldn't know the difference between Dom Perignon and grape soda. If you don't know about films, filmmaking and filmmakers and you're in it for the investment alone then get out of the business Don't you god**** speculators do to movies what you did to the real estate " ... "

The main question has been promptly answered, but I would say that Williams, Morricone and all, are well know composeres. Now, Beethoven, he is famous! No Morricone is from the rarest composers who do all the tasks himself!- he doesn't permit anyone to arrange his themes! Concerning Williams I know that "The Hook" is orchestrated by Alexander Courage. Anyway, I'm surprised by Marian Schedenig answer that Williams don't read notes!!; what's about concert pieces like his concertos- I don't think that it's orchestrated by someone else! Williams studied music at UCLA, am I wrong? Thx OK, forgive me for killing the joy here... It seems people want to have some fun with you! But seriously: When it says that Alexander Courage or anyone else orchestrated something, it means they took Williams' sketches (a condensed score, with the sections of the orchestra usually cramped into two or three lines, but with completely specific instrument designations, i.e. 'Eb clarinet', 'oboe', violas', etc.), and blew them up to proper size (the two-three string staves becomng five, and so on). Williams studied composition privately with Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco. He also studied some at UCLA, and at Juilliard (although at Juilliard, he studied piano, and not composition). Williams's sight-reading abilities, by the way, are legendary. And I'm not trying to say anything bad about Morricone as a composer. But his style is usually fairly simple, and not very "notey", meaning it doesn't take so long to actually write the full score-page. I make my living as a composer myself, and to make matters worse, I am of the "pen&paper" variety, so I know all about how much time writing a full, and fully legible, score page featuring a busy passage can take. And by the way, the kind of orchestrating-job people do for Williams, is similar to he kind of orchestrating job people have done for Brahms, Prokofiev, Wagner, Corigliano and others. If I can ever afford it, I will certainly employ such assistants myself for really big projects, such as operas, etc. And mind you, every note they'd put down on paper would be mine. Ok, thanks...I don't know exactly what do you mean by full score page, but I can also mention a "fairly simply" music by John Williams like The Eiger Sanction; and complicated Morricone arrangement like in The Syndrome of Styndhal- so there is no general rule. Plz we should differentiate between transcript notes or assistant who help choosing instruments and those devoted exclusively for orchestration like Arthur Morton for J. Goldsmith themes. This kind of collaboration is not always easy, for instance a man like Hans Zimmer was often accused for not being the author of his albums, his name was just put over the album for market purposes like it happened in "The Rock". We know how his studio was ended.

The main question has been promptly answered, but I would say that Williams, Morricone and all, are well know composeres. Now, Beethoven, he is famous! No Morricone is from the rarest composers who do all the tasks himself!- he doesn't permit anyone to arrange his themes! Concerning Williams I know that "The Hook" is orchestrated by Alexander Courage. Anyway, I'm surprised by Marian Schedenig answer that Williams don't read notes!!; what's about concert pieces like his concertos- I don't think that it's orchestrated by someone else! Williams studied music at UCLA, am I wrong? Thx

Do J Williams orchestrate his own music like famous composers as Morricone, or always call help of known names like Arthur Morton and Alexander Courage to do it?.. I know sadly that Hollywood is suffering from score industry process-tasks (writers-orchestrtors-coductors-producers.) which are forwarded to different persons Thing that harmed many musicians as well as absolute-music composers.