"Could This Be the Williams Era in Music?"

[TownerFan 4,983]

It's what a music critic is asking:

http://www.sfcv.org/article/could-this-be-the-williams-era-in-music

Interesting.

(thanks to Mari for pointing this out).

[BLUMENKOHL 1,068]

I think he's right. In fact I've mentioned this many times on the forums, and I don't believe it's a positive influence. It's a negative one, or at the very least it's a mighty double edged one.

The big filmic stuff isn't all the old guys like John and Jerry wrote. There was a lot of wonderful substance in between. But the big filmic stuff was the easiest and most satisfying to latch on to. So composers today, the fanboy generation of composers I call them, latched on to those, forgetting the contrast in between.

And what do we get? Hans Zimmer. Epic trailer music. A monotony of the big filmic stuff. Remote Control didn't invent chopping strings. They heard the way John used them in "Hyperspace" and said wow...I've never heard an orchestra do that before! I will use it on all the things!

It's like a toddler who has his first gourmet meal topped with a fantastic dessert. The dessert is part of the whole meal. It's greatness complements and feels greater and even more satisfying because of the meal before it.

Ask the toddler what he wants for dinner from now on.

[TownerFan 4,983]

I think the point is another. The critic is pondering about the influence of cinematic-like stylings in contemporary orchestral music written for the concert hall, as it's clear that at least a certain kind of gestures are now part of the vocabulary younger composers uses when writing a serious piece. In this sense, Williams' music is probably one of the main influences. I think it's a nice thing to acknowledge.

[BLUMENKOHL 1,068]

Like I said, I think he meant it in a positive way, but I think it's more negative or at least more double edged than that.

[TownerFan 4,983]

But I don't understand the relationship you're pointing out between the influence Williams's music is having (consciously or not) on contemporary concert hall composers and the state of current Hollywood film music. It's another argument, imho.

[Hlao-roo 389]

Nay, Maurizio. There's never a wrong time to bash Hans Zimmer and his ruthless band of ruffians. I do it at least three times a day to curry favor with the film music gods.

I think the point is another. The critic is pondering about the influence of cinematic-like stylings in contemporary orchestral music written for the concert hall, as it's clear that at least a certain kind of gestures are now part of the vocabulary younger composers uses when writing a serious piece. In this sense, Williams' music is probably one of the main influences. I think it's a nice thing to acknowledge.

But we can of course trace the lineage back to Copland and Prokofiev and Korngold and the Romantic Era and beyond. If film music is the prevailing symphonic program music of today, it's not surprising that young composers would take cues from it and its foremost practitioners.

[TownerFan 4,983]

I agree.

[Mari 279]

I found the article interesting because for my birthday last month one of the presents I received was The Music of Peter Boyer. The review on Amazon raised the same point:

"Boyer's stated reverence for film composers like Bernard Herrmann, John Williams and Elmer Bernstein is clearly palpable in the "Celebration Overture." The opening Korngoldian fanfare for four trumpets has an epic silver-screen sumptuousness, segueing to a more reflective processional passage."

I was already familiar with and enjoyed the composition "New Beginnings," but the comment above made me more curious to hear the rest of the CD.

Here's a clip from the recording session of New Beginnings:

[media=]

As an aside, Peter Boyer is probably best known to members of the board as one of Michael Giacchino's orchestrators.

[Hlao-roo 389]

Kathy, I hate to break it to you, but it's not February.

But it's nice to see you, regardless.

[Joni Wiljami 1,206]

I just love from 1:28 to 1:46.

[Hlao-roo 389]

I just love from 1:28 to 1:46.

I love it starting with the oboe solo, but I agree.

[Joni Wiljami 1,206]

Yes. It kind of makes the composer's job easy when there are musicians like these two gentlemen.

[KK 3,307]

This article presents a good point. Its clear much of contemporary concert music has taken a more "filmic" atmosphere, aiming for a more modern cinematic effect. And I think its perfectly reasonable, even logical to trace the sound's roots to William's influence.

[JamieC 13]

Hi gang

Williams is everywhere. Just yesterday on BBC tv's Antiques Roadshow programme they played part of the Catch Me If You Can score and part of the 1941 score to underpin the introductory sequence to the episode.

JC

[Pieter Boelen 740]

So basically what they're saying is... CLASSICAL-type music is actually becoming INTERESTING now? What IS the world coming to???

[KK 3,307]

Not a fan of classical music I take it.

[Sharkissimo 1,973]

So basically what they're saying is... CLASSICAL-type music is actually becoming INTERESTING now??

More like REACTIONARY.

[Pieter Boelen 740]

Haha! I finally managed to stir up some controversy, I see!

To be fair, I'm not particularly interested in classical music, since most of it goes over my head.

I did like "An Der Schönen Blauen Donau" back in the days though.

But still... FILM MUSIC FOR THE WIN!

[lostinspace 8]

In 2005 I submitted a piece of music to be played by NZSO. My piece was selected along with 5 other composers I was 17 at the time while the others were post grads or advance music students. My piece has quite a few Williams esque parts in it although, some of you may not hear it

I didn't win the award but the orchestra obviously had fun playing it and clapped afterward (they didn't do this for other compositions). I'm not making this statement to make what I wrote better than the other composers but in listening to what they wrote there was only one other piece of music which I felt genuinely moved by. The rest were very dis chordant using trombone licks, bongos and all sorts of weird combinations. To me, they were unlistenable, furthermore on paper they looked like a midi file extracted with overly complicated notation. They had no themes to latch onto or any hooks as it were ( pop music) that make the listener want to keep listening.

I say all this as part of the 1990's generation ( I am 25 now) many of these composers don't seem to have been influenced at all by Goldsmith or Williams. It remains a mystery to me why these "young composers" can't write a piece of music that tells a story, has meaning. It would seem they put a lot of effort into making it complex and that complexity detracts in getting the message across. I always thought Stravinsky wrote incredibly complex music with poly rhythms and wonderful harmonies. Now when I listen to it like the Rite of Spring, it isn't nearly as complex and all the notes have meaning, there is no redundant notes on the page.

my $0.02 !

[Faleel 5,342]

Reminds me of "The Prophecy" from FOTR at the beginning.

Classical Music was the film music of the 1800s! (just without films of course)

[SF1_freeze 131]

Classical Music was the film music of the 1800s! (just without films of course)

[Genius_Gone_Insane 5]

I would definitely agree that Williams' fame will only increase with time. He is possibly the greatest musician in the past 50 years.

[SteveMc 2,674]

Bump for further discussion. 

I don't know if I would really call it the "Williams era," but, to me, Williams is to this post-modern era what Brahms was to the Romantic.

[The Illustrious Jerry 3,356]

And what would old Hans Zimmer's equivalent have been in the Romanitc? Now there's a question. 

[Holko 9,499]

3 hours ago, The Illustrious Jerry said:

And what would old Hans Zimmer's equivalent have been in the Romanitc? Now there's a question. 

The railroad. Noisy and ugly, but a lot of people like it and it, along with its offshoots and side effects, defines its own era.

 

 

 

It's a joke, people, not actual Zimmerbashing!

[Thor 7,478]

*sigh*

 

Can you guys do ANY thread without Zimmer jokes? Seriously?

 

As to the topic at hand, I must admit I haven't noticed any particular widespread influence of John Williams in contemporary concert music. Perhaps more in the US than here in Europe or elsewhere. Then again, I haven't really followed much contemporary classical music as much as I would have liked. If anything, we're living in "the era of Philip Glass", both in film music or classical music; minimalism is more widespread than ever and has often also taken a more romantic turn -- what I call 'post-minimalist romanticism' or alternatively 'romantic post-minimalism' (Korzeniowski, Marianelli, Richter etc.).

[Joni Wiljami 1,206]

I do hear the influence of JW all the time and everywhere among the many young composers. 

[Bespin 8,480]

Well as I said since along time, in the future, musicologist will use John Williams death year to end the great golden era of Hollywood Symphonic music in movies. Like they use Bach’s death to end the Baroque era.

 

John Williams is the great last figure of this genre. The one that made the genre reborn, and then lift it to its higher standards.

[Thor 7,478]

Ennio Morricone protests!

[KK 3,307]

Does Morricone really represent Hollywood though?

[Bespin 8,480]

Of course Morricone will simplify the life of everyone by dying before John Williams.

 

[SteveMc 2,674]

3 hours ago, Bespin said:

Well as I said since along time, in the future, musicologist will use John Williams death year to end the great golden era of hollywood classical music in movies. Like they use Bach’s death to end the Baroque era.

 

John Williams is the great last figure of this genre. The one that made the genre reborn, and then lift it to its higher standards.

This.

[Kasey Kockroach 2,344]

5 hours ago, Bespin said:

Well as I said since along time, in the future, musicologist will use John Williams death year to end the great golden era of hollywood classical music in movies. Like they use Bach’s death to end the Baroque era.

 

John Williams is the great last figure of this genre. The one that made the genre reborn, and then lift it to its higher standards.

A tad melodramatic, aren't we?

[aviazn 273]

Reposting this excerpt from a New Yorker piece by Russell Platt, which which I agree wholeheartedly. Even if Williams' influence isn't heard in classical new music in terms of his gestures or techniques, the level of accessibility to which so many composers aspire these days is undoubtedly influenced by his music: 

Quote

You’ve probably heard how Williams’s score for “Star Wars” reanimated the grand tradition of the Hollywood symphonic soundtrack, epitomized by Williams’s hero, Erich Wolfgang Korngold. But you may not realize how influential Williams’s score was on classical composition in general. It was my generation that was the first to rebel broadly against the entrenched post-Schoenbergian modernist atonality that reigned in the most prestigious academic departments in the seventies and eighties; some of us even paid a price for it. “Sure, we love Schoenberg,” we would say. “But you want us to keep writing like that? No way: look at John Williams. Let us do what we want!” Of course, teaching composition is not merely about letting students do what they want; it’s about guiding them in the making of choices. But the ideology had become rigid, and something had to give. Even modernist composers of my generation will admit that Williams’s music expanded their expressive horizons and reminded them of their fundamental responsibility to the audience.

 

[Nick Parker 3,040]

This whole type of conversation is very much a slippery slope, for me, anyways. I don't like the weird over-simplification and box that it tends to put Williams in. 

[Bespin 8,480]

I love that when it's melodramatic and slippery!

[SteveMc 2,674]

1 hour ago, aviazn said:

Even modernist composers of my generation will admit that Williams’s music expanded their expressive horizons and reminded them of their fundamental responsibility to the audience.

I love this quote!

[TownerFan 4,983]

I still concur with the article.

 

I think JW made a profound influence on composers who are writing primarily for the concert stage. There is a breed of American composers who, voluntarily or not, show a deal of influence from JW's film music: Jennifer Higdon, Kevin Puts, Michael Torke, Richard Danielpour comes to mind. But there are also European composers who seem indebted with a sort of "cinematic" orchestral approach, like Rolf Martinsson and Guillaime Connesson.

 

Perhaps it's not an influence huge as to form an entire current in contemporary concert music, but it's undeniable that orchestral film music (and Williams' in particular) ringed in many people's ears and showed how many possibilities still there are in writing music in that particular style.

[Nick Parker 3,040]

6 hours ago, TownerFan said:

I still concur with the article.

 

I think JW made a profound influence on composers who are writing primarily for the concert stage. There is a breed of American composers who, voluntarily or not, show a deal of influence from JW's film music: Jennifer Higdon, Kevin Puts, Michael Torke, Richard Danielpour comes to mind. But there are also European composers who seem indebted with a sort of "cinematic" orchestral approach, like Rolf Martinsson and Guillaime Connesson.

 

Perhaps it's not an influence huge as to form an entire current in contemporary concert music, but it's undeniable that orchestral film music (and Williams' in particular) ringed in many people's ears and showed how many possibilities still there are in writing music in that particular style.

 

To expand on my previous post, I think it can be dangerous to pin one man or woman as the epitome of a given style, to everyone involved.

 

I was invited to an orchestral concert several years ago in which the conductor was having a "meet" session with the audience. The piece the orchestra was performing...I can't remember the name or the composer, but the latter described the former as a kind of cocktail party where you meet and greet an American composer for thirty seconds, then move to the next, so on: here's Copland, then Ellington, then Ives, you get the idea. I think this piece has made the rounds over the intervening years, wouldn't be surprised if @Disco Stu knows it.

 

Well the conductor was playing recorded excerpts of the piece to the audience, asking them to guess the composer being homaged in each portion. There came one that this was this big, sweeping, romantic thing, briad string melodies, the works. Really, it was rather bland, very schmaltzy and corny-ass fluff. The most insipid and limp approximation of movie music you can imagine, the kind of thing you'd hear in a movie-within-a-movie, know what I mean?

 

And this time,  the way the conductor was asking "Who is it?", you could tell she had an answer she wanted to hear. Audience members said "Elmer Bernstein? Leonard Bernstein? Erich Korngold?" And the conductor said no every time. Finally, someone hazarded the guess: "John Williams?" 

 

"Yep, John Williams. You can tell from the big, lush strings, and the romantic melody."

 

My reaction: "Oh piss off."

[Disco Stu 15,495]

1 hour ago, Nick Parker said:

Well the conductor was playing recorded excerpts of the piece to the audience, asking them to guess the composer being homaged in each portion. There came one that this was this big, sweeping, romantic thing, briad string melodies, the works. Really, it was rather bland, very schmaltzy and corny-ass fluff. The most insipid and limp approximation of movie music you can imagine, the kind of thing you'd hear in a movie-within-a-movie, know what I mean?

 

It's the kind of thing that Copland used to suffer from more in the 60s to 80s.  People whose entire paradigm depends on engaging with these composers only on the surface level of popular perception, refusing to dig deeper and see the complexities.

 

Copland of course had champions in younger conductors like Tilson Thomas and Alsop to keep his reputation from fading, which helped immensely.

[Fabulin 3,510]

 

.

[Dixon Hill 4,233]

Music is too diffuse now for it to be the era of anyone.  Williams is influential and so are many others out there and the time of a period belonging to any one figure is over.  Frankly I think if anything we've been in the era of Ives for about a century and will likely be for another one.

[TownerFan 4,983]

I think the "Williams Era" tag is mostly a consequence of finally seeing the music of JW more widely accepted, welcomed and appreciated by the classical music circles after many years of scathing comments from the same environment. The fact many contemporary concert music composers are using stylistic traits perceived as "Williams-ian" is now seen as a plus and not necessarily as a limit. That being said, I don't think there is a current or a movement to which we can apply such a tag. As you said, there are other composers who are as influential as JW, but perhaps they're not as famous as he is among the general audience.

[Joni Wiljami 1,206]

5 hours ago, TGP said:

Music is too diffuse now for it to be the era of anyone.  Williams is influential and so are many others out there and the time of a period belonging to any one figure is over.  Frankly I think if anything we've been in the era of Ives for about a century and will likely be for another one.

Who is Ives? 

[Disco Stu 15,495]

29 minutes ago, hornist said:

Who is Ives? 

 

He was an enormous influence on modern art music from the 1940s onward when his music started getting more well-known, championed by everyone from Copland to Schoenberg to Bernard Herrmann.

 

Do yourself a favor. 

 

 

I HIGHLY recommend his 4th symphony.

[publicist 4,643]

3 hours ago, TownerFan said:

I think the "Williams Era" tag is mostly a consequence of finally seeing the music of JW more widely accepted, welcomed and appreciated by the classical music circles after many years of scathing comments from the same environment. The fact many contemporary concert music composers are using stylistic traits perceived as "Williams-ian" is now seen as a plus and not necessarily as a limit. 

 

Whose music is mostly irrelevant due to the borders between U & E (german abbreviation of 'serious' vs. 'pop' music) being torn down by all kinds of eclectic crossover stuff that is much more popular.

 

I'm afraid all that has happened to film music is the bigger exposure to blockbuster music, it tends to be almost irrelevant if it's Williams or Zimmer if the franchises are just spelled right as witnessed by those 'Gladiator meets Star Wars' concerts i have seen between Berlin, Lucerne and Vienna (notable positive exception: Ghent). Which of course tends to substantiate the superficial criticisms of film music. 

[TownerFan 4,983]

51 minutes ago, publicist said:

I'm afraid all that has happened to film music is the bigger exposure to blockbuster music, it tends to be almost irrelevant if it's Williams or Zimmer if the franchises are just spelled right as witnessed by those 'Gladiator meets Star Wars' concerts i have seen between Berlin, Lucerne and Vienna (notable positive exception: Ghent). Which of course tends to substantiate the superficial criticisms of film music. 

 

Yes, mostly because film music is seen/evaluated in classical circles still mostly as pops/crossover stuff. Of course what brings new people in concert halls is the blockbuster fare (Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Pirates of the Caribbean etc), hence music directors and institutions tend to market film music concerts as popular stuff palatable to people who aren't keen to the classical repertoire. And that brings to the criticism you spoke about that still persists in some circles.

 

However, I think it's fair to recognize that Williams' music is highly regarded by musicians, composers and conductors not just because it's popular and fits well in this classical crossover world, but because of its inherent musical merits, i.e. it's music well written, enjoyable to perform for orchestras, crafted with panache and wisdom by a composer with a broad stylistic spectrum and to which audiences respond with joy. Sure, it's still film music, but I long for the day where some conductor will not be afraid to offer a program where he/she mixes Prokofiev, Ravel and Williams. Or Walton, Shostakovich and Herrmann. Or Stravinskij, Copland and Goldsmith. I don't mean that as an easy way to fold some film pieces together with some classical stuff and hence giving them the so-called status of "serious music". But I believe that good music is good music and it's ultimately useless to box it in genres or, even worse, musical ghettos.

[Dixon Hill 4,233]

2 hours ago, Disco Stu said:

 

He was an enormous influence on modern art music from the 1940s onward when his music started getting more well-known, championed by everyone from Copland to Schoenberg to Bernard Herrmann.

 

Do yourself a favor. 

 

 

I HIGHLY recommend his 4th symphony.

 

Laudable recommendation Stu but I expect hornist knows just who he was and is playing dumb to make his usual point of musical single mindedness and fascism.

[Joni Wiljami 1,206]

2 minutes ago, TGP said:

 

Laudable recommendation Stu but I expect hornist knows just who he was and is playing dumb to make his usual point of musical single mindedness and fascism.

 

To be honest I knew the name but couldn't remember any of his works or have I ever played his music. Totally unfamiliar to me. 

 

And thanks again for the nice words!! 🙄

[publicist 4,643]

53 minutes ago, TownerFan said:

However, I think it's fair to recognize that Williams' music is highly regarded by musicians, composers and conductors not just because it's popular and fits well in this classical crossover world, but because of its inherent musical merits, i.e. it's music well written, enjoyable to perform for orchestras, crafted with panache and wisdom by a composer with a broad stylistic spectrum and to which audiences respond with joy. 

 

And yet, they perform (almost) exclusively the same old warhorses of the Lucas/Spielberg films (fill in Potter, Superman and similar franchises). I am not a particular fan of Star Wars and so on, so i really hate to see Williams reduced to these idioms and respective pieces - broad stylistic spectrum to me means more than occasioanally throwing Schindler or Geisha pieces into the mix. i would be genuinly interested in a concert with his jazz and less familiar cues (The Fury, Rosewood for example) just to see how they would go and i'm sure they would be garner some warm applause, too.