John Williams concert in Gent

[TownerFan 4,983]

Over at maintitles.net, a gracious member posted a translation of a nice interview with John Williams that appeared on a Belgian magazine in occasion of the Ghent concert. Here it is for you:

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This year the Film festival honours the world’s greatest film composer John Williams with a unique tribute concert – think ‘Star Wars’, ‘Indiana Jones’ and ‘E.T.’. An exclusive talk with the maestro of the symphonic score, fulltime composer of Steven Spielberg en 45 times Oscar nominee. ‘Regretfully I cannot be present, as such a concert in Gent is a true honour.’

Saying John Towner Williams – 76 years old – is one of the most influential film composers of all time, is a real understatement. Not only did he write the unforgettable music for Jaws, Star Wars, Superman, Indiana Jones, Schindler’s List and many more, he is also considered to be the godfather of the symphonic score, he has collaborated with Hitchcock, Altman, De Palma and has 45 Oscar nominations under his name, of which he turned 5 into gold statues. Furthermore Williams – who has studied for concert pianist at the famed Juilliard school – wrote several concerto’s, sonatas, a musical and two symphonies, while conducting the Boston Pops Orchestra for years, perhaps known as the most famous symphonic orchestra in the United States.

While being more or less responsible on his own for the revival of the symphonic film score – with large orchestra and by expansive use of leitmotifs – Williams can hardly be called an ‘overnight sensation’. For years he had to content himself with jobs as session musician and arranger for various television- and film-studios. At the beginning of the 70s he was asked by producer Irwin Allen to score his disaster hits ‘The Poseidon Adventure’, ‘The Towering Inferno’ and ‘Earthquake’. And especially when a young, ambitious individual requested his services to compose the music for his debut ‘The Sugarland Express’. His name? Steven Spielberg. The result is one of the longest and most fruitful collaborations in Tinseltown. A conversation with a – excuse the muted expression – living legend.

Are you in any way involved with the concert in Gent?

John Williams: No, but I’m very much aware of it and have written the organisers and musicians a letter of thanks. At the end it’s a great honour, especially for a festival that continues to bring film music to the forefront, that is of high musical quality and has an excellent reputation in Hollywood. Do you want to thank them from me once again?

With pleasure, they’ve been hoping to have you as a guest for years now.

Williams: I know. And I would love to visit the city of Gent. Allegedly it’s a gorgeous city. The problem is that I’m always busy and we can never coordinate our agenda’s. Maybe next year.

The festival focuses on the impact of music in film. Is it an art form that continues to be underestimated?

Williams: For the latest 20 years, I’ve seen an improvement, also from the domain of traditional classical music. In the past, film composers were seen as professional workers who deliver assembly line work for Hollywood. Or worse: as failed classicists. When I was a student, not a single American university had film technique on their curriculum, let alone were you able to study film music at the academies. That has changed, fortunately. And not because it’s a means of earning a living for many composers. Finally the knowledge is growing that many innovations come from the film business. Plus: film has delivered classical music to millions of people that don’t visit concerts.

You have called film music as one of the few authentic American art forms.

Williams: I’d like to nuance that a bit. There has always been tremendous music for film in Europe en definitely during the starting years of Hollywood the impact of foreign composers such as Korngold en Steiner was huge. I mean that film music has influenced other musical genres these past decennia. The typical American aspect of that is that Hollywood – certainly the biggest film industry in the world – has played a major role in that growing process. What started out as a popular cultural product has evolved into an accomplished artistic medium thanks to Hollywood. That is something Americans – who have never depended on a rich cultural history compared to Europeans – always have done: unite high and low forms of art to give popular entertainment an artistic dimension.

You are trained as a concert pianist and have composed several classical works. Doesn’t it bother you to always be associated with film hits and to be reduced to the master of the heroic score?

Williams: I don’t have to complain about a lack of recognition. It’s true I have a passion for symphonic material, but if you listen closely, you can hear influences from the avant garde, jazz, musical en rock genres. Do you know the music from ‘Memoirs of a Geisha’? That one is based on traditional Japanese music. It’s definitely not true to feel I’m a victim of my own success, in the sense that people always expect from me a certain type of symphonic score or popular themes. I’ve always been able to explore the full musical spectrum. The thing is, the public really likes my symphonic works, which doesn’t frustrate me. At all. I’m very proud when my music becomes a hit en I always hope my music – even the experimental – will be embraced by the audience. A composer who states he writes music to content his soul and is insensitive to success is a liar.

Nevertheless you only had your breakthrough during the mid-70s, while already composing for twenty years. Was that because your style of symphonic writing was considerated dated, because at that time people were experimenting a lot with rock and atonal music?

Williams: Hard to say. You have to be lucky as well. Musical trends depend on the success of a film. If Jaws and Star Wars hadn’t become the hits they are, I doubt we would’ve been hearing so many symphonic scores.

Remarkable: You never read the script when composing a score.

Williams: I prefer to watch the film in a more or less finished state, to be able to have an honest opinion and to react spontaneously just like a regular member of the audience. This way you can feel the rhythm of the whole much better.

So you never enter a screening room full of musical ideas in your head?

Williams: That happens, but I like to let the ideas flow out of the film. The most important thing about a film score is that the tempo is dependent on the editing. Music can change the tone of a scene fundamentally. Put slightly faster or slower violins during the action scenes in Jaws and out goes the suspense, no matter how good the film is. The problem is that some films – especially those with a lot of special effects – don’t allow having an idea of the general rhythm. Some cuts are shortened, others lengthened. And you have to play on that aspect. I compare it to horse riding. A jockey who moves along with the horse’s running doesn’t feel it, but moves on forward. An audience shouldn’t feel the music, but must be propelled by the action, where music and editing together determine the rhythm.

What would you call a good score?

Williams: It has to be complimentary and be supportive, but not insistent or intellectually overbearing. Ideally it has to exist as a musical piece on its own. I do not agree with the notion that good film music should not be heard. You have to find a balance between underlying discretion and artistic originality.

Did the digital revolution change you way of working?

Williams: Not really. I still use pen and paper and I still work with flesh and blood musicians. I’m a dinosaur in that way. In a studio everything happens digitally and frames and tempos are monitored by the computer. That’s a job for the engineers. Nothing has changed about working with the director. He still expresses his ideas and together we try to make the most organic score. At times I can determine how long a frame lasts, but I have nothing to say about choice of shots. I don’t mean to. A film composer must respect the integrity of the director at all times, regardless of his own opinion of the film.

You have scored nearly all the films of Steven Spielberg. Did you know when you started out this would lead to a special partnership?

Williams: Something like that grows naturally. But when I saw ‘The Sugerland Express’, I knew immediately he would become somebody special. Concerning my relation with Steven, I’m just a very lucky guy. When he first asked me, I wasn’t well known, but he did like my score for ‘The Reivers’ so much he wanted to work with me no matter what. That appreciation – both musically and personally – has always existed fortunately and is still mutual. As long as my health remains, I hope to keep on working with Steven.

On top of that you’ve worked with such established personalities as Hitchcock, De Palma and Altman. Has it always been hassle-free?

Williams: I’ve never felt restrained artistically, even with the most demanding directors. If the result wasn’t all that, it was mainly because I failed. I’ll never put the fault with the director. Most stories about so called difficult directors are exaggerated. When I wrote Hitchcock’s final film ‘Family Plot’, I got to know the man as a pleasant individual from whom I’ve learned much. You want to hear juicy stories about the time he tried to tyrannise me, you won’t hear a word from me. (laughs)

So far you’ve gathered 45 Oscar nominations. Do you ever get used to the success?

Williams: No. Try to compare it to being a fan of your favourite football team. If your team has won for the 45th time, you want them to win a 46th time. I’m still every bit as ambitious and insecure as when I started.

You’ve influenced numerous composers, but who has actually inspired you?

Williams: The older I get, the further I go back in time. Lately I find my self spending time with Haydn and Bach, but I used to be crazy about the modern Russian and English composers. Stravinsky, Prokofiev and Sjostakovich. And Elgar and Vaugh-Williams.

You don’t appear much on premieres and rarely give interviews. Are you the prototype of the somewhat media-shy artist?

Williams: (puzzled) What makes you think that? When I was conducting the Boston Pops Orchestra, I was all around the place giving interviews and when Steven asks me to do something for a DVD, I mostly say ‘yes’. I just don’t feel the urge to be in the spotlights always and everywhere I go. I’m no movie star, just a hardworking professional with only a little bit of talent. Glamour performances I leave to the more handsome men such as Sean Connery. (laughs)

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He also graciously posted scans from the magazine:

Part 1: http://img128.imageshack.us/my.php?image=w...terview1ju6.jpg

Part 2: http://img58.imageshack.us/my.php?image=wi...terview2iw0.jpg

Part 3: http://img353.imageshack.us/my.php?image=w...terview3iu0.jpg

[fommes 153]

Thanks for that!

[Hitch 57]

Darth Vadermasker......I love it. Thanks for posting that article. Very informative.

[Maglorfin 196]

I just don’t feel the urge to be in the spotlights always and everywhere I go. I’m no movie star, just a hardworking professional with only a little bit of talent.

Ever the polite, humble Johnny. -_-

Thanks for the nice interview!

[fommes 153]

Marc, still some last minute tickets available apparently.

[TownerFan 4,983]

I'll be there along with my brother and his wife. If someone will be there too, I'll be glad to meet up!

[Nick Parker 3,040]

That was a magnificent article.

[Hitch 57]

Hardly magnificent.

[Nick Parker 3,040]

Excuse me!!!

[fommes 153]

This was a really great concert (sorry, Marc! ), and Brossé, as always, got a great performance out of the orchestra. Particular highlights were Close Encounters, Double Trouble, Duel of the Fates, Memoirs of a Geisha. 1941, too, was so much fun.

[MissPadmé 17]

don't get me wrong, but that doesn't sound like Williams.

must be the translation.

[Hitch 57]

Excuse me!!!

You're not excused until I tell you

[fommes 153]

Here's a lengthier appraisal of the concert.

First of all, I thought the programme was rather good, much better than I had expected (I thought all the selections would be from his blockbuster films, but not so.) Personally, I would have added a bit more from his even lesser known scores (for the grand public, that is) like The Eiger Sanction or The Long Goodbye, etc., but I suppose that the involvement of Williams himself (which was probably not much more than suggesting a few things and greenlighting the thing, though) would have made that rather more difficult. The only 'blockbuster' item that I personally found lacking was "Parade of the Slave Children".

All the selections that were played were the usual concert suites from these scores.

Part 1:

- Hook - Flight to Neverland: the usual suite, not so fluid opening seconds but the rest was great. I think it's the same suite as can be found on the Williams on Williams album.

- Far & Away: it's obvious the orchestra wasn't always in unison on this one but nevertheless great suite to hear live.

- The Terminal: the album version. The soloist played decent enough, but he lacked a kind of verve or panache, perhaps, or even just pace, and wasn't entirely up to the real speed of the thing (the performance slowed down on occasions). He also made the occasional error, the most notable being in the final measures of the piece. At this kind of musical/professional level, I'd personally expect the soloist's performance to be flawless (and certainly without obvious mistakes).

- Memoirs from a Geisha: the usual (great!) concert suite. I wish we had a good sounding recording of this. Doesn't this have two versions, with differences in orchestration? It was the one with the flute opening the theme rather than the cello.

- Close Encounters of the Third Kind: surely one of the best performances of the evening. This might be the piece that I most enjoyed, and hearing this live is a blast. I can't remember if this was the long nine-/ten-minute suite, or the shorter 4-/5-minute one. (I think the latter.)

- 1941 - March: never thought I'd be hearing this in concert! This was just plain fun, and pieces like this, along with the more atonal writing like Close Encounters, show the conductor Dirk Brossé at his best.

- Schindler’s List: I was a bit disappointed that they played the theme, because the real highlight of this score is "Remembrances", in my opinion. Difficult piece to live up to the expectations - often the solo violists will be obnoxious in their sound and speed; but the soloist was really good. His violin also had a really warm and moving sound. If I have one caveat, it would be that near the latter part of the piece, he tried a bit tóó hard to be musical - he tried to play with feeling on every note. Don't get me wrong, I love how he plays something musically, but you got to realize that there's an orchestra and there are measures behind it as well. Anyway, very nice performance.

- Jaws: too slow, unfortunately. This was perhaps an artistic choice - because Brossé usually tries to keep the tempo high enough. Too bad, because the performance itself was good.

- E.T. - Flying Theme: nice performance, nothing spectacular, but great to hear this live for sure.

Part 2:

- The Raiders March: always great to hear this live, no matter how many times you've heard it.

- The Patriot: very run-of-the-mill/generic Williams score, so I'd rather they played something else (like Seven Years in Tibet or so). Decent enough performance. I don't believe the concert suite is available somewhere on CD?

- Saving Private Ryan - Hymn to the Fallen: the first time we heard the choir. This is one of my favourite pieces, and very impressive to hear live. The choirs were all rather good on all the pieces.

- Harry Potter & the Sorcerer’s Stone - Harry’s Wondrous World: the Harry Potter pieces were the best evidence that this orchestra has really improved. They did a Harry Potter concert a few years back in Ostend, and there the performances were sometimes quite bad (especially the brass section).

- Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - The Knight Bus: again, much clearer and better performance than a few years back. Really fun to hear this extended concert arrangement live.

- Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - Double Trouble: they had to drop this in Ostend (I think because they had no choir?), so I was really looking forward to this concert arrangement. Good performance from choir and orchestra. Both this arrangement and the last piece are available on Silva's 2-CD compilation of the series.

- Home Alone: sadly, they only played "Somewhere in my Memory", which is a piece that's really well known, if I'm not mistaken, in the U.S., but not really over here, and they didn't include the wonderful main title of the film, which is for me the real highlight of these scores.

- Amistad - Dry your Tears: the first choral statement of the theme was by the children's choir (an artistic choice, I guess, since they had that choir available for "Double Trouble" anyway?). The intention was good for sure (nice variation), but unfortunately the children were really out of tone on this one. It became soon apparent it wasn't really written for children's choir, I suppose. Rather strange orchestral opening as well (I guess they lacked some of the percussion, and tried to solve it partly through the piano, but it didn't really sound fully-fledged.) The rest was great though. It was the concert version of the theme. I think this is available on the Silva compilation, but I should check that.

- Star Wars - Theme: great to hear live. Like in the earlier open-air concert in Ghent this summer, Brossé really keeps up the tempo on this one, gets as much dynamics as possible out of the orchestra.

- Revenge of the Sith - Battle of the Heroes: again, here and there perhaps not dynamic enough, but overall chilling performance. The speakers were too loud during the whole evening (esp. second half), and this became really apparent especially during these loud pieces from Star Wars.

- Attack of the Clones - Across the Stars: nice performance, but why did they cut this piece short? It really didn't have any ending at all, the end came out of the blue. Really strange, and a pity. Do they shorten this in concerts in the US as well in Star Wars suites?

- The Phantom Menace - Duel of the Fates: what a blast; a terrific ending to the programme.

Encores:

- The Empire Strikes Back - The Imperial March: nice addition to the programme, for sure.

- Raiders of the Lost Ark - Raiders March: too bad they chose a piece they already played. Temple of Doom would have fit in nicely. But hearing this twice is better than not at all I suppose.

Organisation-wise, there's always something that's wrong with the Ghent filmfestival's concerts, in my experience. We had really good seats - par terre, almost in the middle, but I presume for the people in the stands, the sound can't have been good at all. (The concert was held in a cycling arena.) Of course that's a structural problem (there's no venue in Belgium large enough for concerts like this and The Lord of the Rings, etc., I think). But why not spread it over several days in smaller concert venues...? Also, there were problems with the speakers (ideally, of course, you don't need speakers at a concert with a symphonic orchestra): static in a few instances, mixed too loud esp. in the second half, etc. All respect for the daunting organisation of such an event, but things like this shouldn't happen. (Especially after problems with the mixing/speakers during the entire first half of The Lord of the Rings concert).

For us personally, however, the worst thing, this time, were the two photographers that were taking pictures during the whole first part of the concert - taking like hundred photographs of the same orchestra. They were just clicking away the whole time, and preferably even during the more silent parts. You just can't believe the amateurism sometimes.

As I already said, the orchestra has really improved, and the performances were decent; but in the end could be perhaps slightly better for one of the better orchestras of the country... Perhaps they never get much repetition time, (or perhaps don't bother for film music?), I don't know. But I was pleasantly surprised, really. Overall, Dirk Brossé, as always, saves the evening, demanding such a high level of performance. He's just such a great conductor.

In the end, it was a great evening. Just hearing these pieces live for the first time is an experience of its own.

Really too bad for the people that didn't make it! Next time there's a really good concert programmed, we should get it planned better.

Incidentally, James Newton Howard was at the World Soundtrack Awards this weekend - really impressive, and even more so considering Trevor Jones was also there (along with meanwhile regulars like David Arnold et al.) - so who knows, perhaps there'll be a concert of his music too, in the near future. We might meet up then. (Although, talk of a David Arnold concert has been around for a number of years, and they haven't done that yet either, so this might be false alarm.)