John Williams - Our modern-day Mozart

[Ludwig 1,120]

A thought occurred to me today that John Williams has quite a lot in common with one of the most respected and beloved of all classical composers - Mozart. Of course, JW has far outlived Mozart now (died at age 35) and is never profane the way the latter could be, but consider that Mozart:

1) Had a rare gift for melody.

2) Composed with considerable ease, and didn't struggle with sketches the way, say, Beethoven did.

3) Was a virtuoso pianist, a quality that gives his music a fresh and spontaneous sound through ease of improvisation.

4) Had a talent for finding just the right music for dramatic scenarios (in his case, in operas).

5) Perhaps most importantly, brought together the different styles of his era and fused them into his own unique style.

6) Is known primarily for his orchestral music (in his case, sometimes combined with voices or other instruments as in concertos)

7) Learned composition (especially for orchestra) quite young.

What's different is the styles of music that Williams deals with. He doesn't sound like Mozart of course because he deals with the variety of styles heard in film music - classical blended with jazz, pop, modern, indigenous, etc. And yes, Williams does consider the composing of themes to be difficult (a tinge of Beethoven after all?), but it seems that once he has them, the ideas flow fairly easily.

But the number of parallels otherwise are striking, which is why I would go as far as to claim that Williams is our modern-day Mozart.

[Hlao-roo 389]

So Attenborough plays Williams in Towner, right?

[Incanus 5,713]

I thought we agreed on David Ogden Stiers!

Although one thing John lacks is the career of a child prodigy, where his father would have shown him around US in concert halls since very early age. Also he didn't have a chance to impress any emperors or royalty at the age of 7.

[Sandor 796]

Obviously, this is the guy who should play Towner..!

[publicist 4,643]

Ah, we waited long for another try to lend Williams' name more gravitas by inventing peculiar connections to celebrated wunderkinds of the past. Next-up: 'Rare skin pigmentation similarity that Williams and Einstein share' and 'A list of Nobel Prize Winners that also like to drink Château Pétrus from expensive pumps'

[filmmusic 1,823]

Ludwig, I don't think i would be so sure about your 2nd point.

Williams himself has said multiple times how difficult it is to find the right melody, and he could be working on it for days or weeks even.

So, we don't know how many preliminary sketches he may have done, until he writes the final sketch.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

As far as I know Williams is NOT a piano virtuoso.

I mean he's a very good piano player, but...

[Incanus 5,713]

As far as I know Williams is NOT a piano virtuoso.

I mean he's a very good piano player, but...

Well he was at one point aiming for a career as a concert pianist. So he isn't a complete klutz when it comes to piano. But perhaps not a virtuoso either.

Thor? Miguel? Any info regarding Williams' career as a pianist and what foiled his plans?

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Oh i know, but as far as I know virtioso means someone who is truly outstanding, world class.

[Thor 7,474]

Williams surely had it in him to be a worldclass pianist. There is loads of brilliance in his playing, even classical music (the Prokofiev album he did as pianist is a good example). Why he decided to eschew that fulltime career in favour of composition, I do not know. Maybe because he realized he was a decent composer too -- composition is a very tempting profession once you realize you have the hang for it.

[Incanus 5,713]

Williams surely had it in him to be a worldclass pianist. There is loads of brilliance in his playing, even classical music (the Prokofiev album he did as pianist is a good example). Why he decided to eschew that fulltime career in favour of composition, I do not know. Maybe because he realized he was a decent composer too -- composition is a very tempting profession once you realize you have the hang for it.

Yes and usually the lure of a decent paycheck when you have a family sounds more tempting than a uncertain career as a concert pianist. I think I remember Williams mentioning this as one of the reasons he went for the studio musician work in the first place.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

Composition means creating your own music, letting your own voice be heard.

[filmmusic 1,823]

Williams surely had it in him to be a worldclass pianist. There is loads of brilliance in his playing, even classical music (the Prokofiev album he did as pianist is a good example). Why he decided to eschew that fulltime career in favour of composition, I do not know. Maybe because he realized he was a decent composer too -- composition is a very tempting profession once you realize you have the hang for it.

Yes and usually the lure of a decent paycheck when you have a family sounds more tempting than a uncertain career as a concert pianist. I think I remember Williams mentioning this as one of the reasons he went for the studio musician work in the first place.

hmmm.. I think both a concert pianist and a composer, are uncertain careers..

And I would say the profession of a composer, is even riskier (if you don't become a household name)

[Incanus 5,713]

Williams surely had it in him to be a worldclass pianist. There is loads of brilliance in his playing, even classical music (the Prokofiev album he did as pianist is a good example). Why he decided to eschew that fulltime career in favour of composition, I do not know. Maybe because he realized he was a decent composer too -- composition is a very tempting profession once you realize you have the hang for it.

Yes and usually the lure of a decent paycheck when you have a family sounds more tempting than a uncertain career as a concert pianist. I think I remember Williams mentioning this as one of the reasons he went for the studio musician work in the first place.

hmmm.. I think both a concert pianist and a composer, are uncertain careers..

And I would say the profession of a composer, is even riskier (if you don't become a household name)

Yes hence Williams' career took that path from a studio musician to orchestrating other people's music to scoring your own TV episodes and then films, which sounds like something of a natural progression, where you could learn and gain experience and win your spurs over time. And again it was probably a more secure career than becoming a "serious composer", a thing for which Williams' friends like Previn (who himself had a succesful time in Hollywood) chided him.

[Thor 7,474]

Yes hence Williams' career took that path from a studio musician to orchestrating other people's music to scoring your own TV episodes and then films, which sounds like something of a natural progression, where you could learn and gain experience and win your spurs over time. And again it was probably a more secure career than becoming a "serious composer", a thing for which Williams' friends like Previn (who himself had a succesful time in Hollywood) chided him.

Well, there was certainly a progression, but many of those things happened at the same time in the late 50s (pianist, orchestration, composing). I don't think he really decided to be a fulltime film composer untill sometime into the early 60s.

[Miguel Andrade 1,262]

Williams was interested on a carreer as pianist early on, and was that good to be accepted on Rohsina Lhevine's class at Juilliard -- at the time, se was considered to be the top piano teacher in the United States, and just the best of the best got into her classes.

Williams as jocked often that the result of thinking on an alternative carreer comes from that year at Juilliard, when he heard the likes of Van Cliburn and John Browning practicing and aknowledged he would never be that good.

Still, he was one of the top piano players in the Hollywood studios in the late 50's and early 60's, along with Jimmy Rowles. He played not only on many soundtrack sessions but also for many jazz giants (Carmen McRae for example), and his classical training can very well be heard on the above mentioned Prokofiev/Steinman recording from the early 70's.

In the late 50's, he went to work as a studio musician, because he was just married and the Williamses were expecting a baby girl and he needed to earn a living, and he did it so by working mainly as a pianist. In an article I read recently, one of his colleagues from those years recollected that in the ealry 60's he was still not sure if he should move to compose full time, something he seemed already to be interested in, but probably had some concerns due to the income of a diferent activitie he might not have been as good.

Yes hence Williams' career took that path from a studio musician to orchestrating other people's music to scoring your own TV episodes and then films, which sounds like something of a natural progression, where you could learn and gain experience and win your spurs over time. And again it was probably a more secure career than becoming a "serious composer", a thing for which Williams' friends like Previn (who himself had a succesful time in Hollywood) chided him.

Well, there was certainly a progression, but many of those things happened at the same time in the late 50s (pianist, orchestration, composing). I don't think he really decided to be a fulltime film composer untill sometime into the early 60s.

I would never use the term "full time film composer". Full time composer sound ok, though.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

I know you don't like it, but John Williams, up until quite recently was primarily a film composer.

And if you compare his film works to his other output, that's where the bulk of his music was composed for.

[Hlao-roo 389]

Williams: part-time composer, full-time deity.

[Ludwig 1,120]

In the latter half of the 20th century, many pianists specialized in a certain repertoire. Take the two that Miguel mentioned. Van Cliburn did mostly Romantic piano concertos and John Browning did mostly Baroque pieces. Even today, we have Alfred Brendel, a Beethoven specialist, and Angela Hewitt, a Bach specialist. And all of these are undeniably virtuosos even though they focus on a particular rep.

So by virtuoso, what is really meant is a master of one's specialty, whatever area that may be. For Williams to have played as a jazz pianist in Hollywood and with high profile artists would certainly qualify in that respect.

Ludwig, I don't think i would be so sure about your 2nd point.

Williams himself has said multiple times how difficult it is to find the right melody, and he could be working on it for days or weeks even.

So, we don't know how many preliminary sketches he may have done, until he writes the final sketch.

Yes, that's why I admitted this in the original post. Does anyone know of cases where JW spent quite a long time on "pre-composition", i.e., coming up with themes to use as material for the score? (And I don't mean CE3K, where he wrote some dozens of themes and it was up to Spielberg to decide which one to use - that's a different matter. I mean personally struggling to come up with the music.)

[filmmusic 1,823]

From what I remember, he's supposed to struggle to find the themes in all films.

One example that comes in mind is Indiana Jones and Memoirs of a Geisha.

(I mean, being interviewed on these films he said that it's difficult to find the right melody and he works on the themes for days and so on)

[Ludwig 1,120]

From what I remember, he's supposed to struggle to find the themes in all films.

One example that comes in mind is Indiana Jones and Memoirs of a Geisha.

(I mean, being interviewed on these films he said that it's difficult to find the right melody and he works on the themes for days and so on)

Did he actually say "days"? Or is that an interpretation? He's a very modest guy and "difficult" for him might mean that he worked on a theme for a few hours rather than days or weeks as one might think from such a comment.

[filmmusic 1,823]

It's easy to obfuscate, to lay on complexity," he says, "but it's very hard to write simply. I spend far more time getting those little tunes than doing a six-minute battle sequence," sometimes working weeks on a simple eight-bar phrase to get it to the point where it sounds "inevitable, as if it had always been there".

in an interview about the Geisha theme:

Williams: Melodies or melodic identification are, for me, the hardest things to do, and I spend a lot of time on those melodies that will sound very simple or inevitable when they're heard. In a case like this, it's weeks of tinkering around with various approaches and different ideas and trying to manipulate one or the other to make it feel like it lives or wants to belong in the film in a very natural way. It's not easy for me, and I spend more time doing that than orchestrating or developing or doing contrapuntal workouts of the material -- once I have the material, all those other things are relatively easy. Beyond that, it's always hard to say. If we talk about the genesis of these things, a lot of it has to do with the way you feel and how you respond to the material.

[Ludwig 1,120]

Wonderful. Thank you for these quotes. This confirms what we said about his theme writing being difficult. But also notice how "easy" he says composing is once the material's there, which was my point about his compositional practice.

Still, one has to wonder when these weeks take place. I presume they're before the official scoring period begins since so much music has to written on such a tight schedule that I would think there's no time to sit around for weeks tinkering with the tune. Besides, if most of the music derives from these themes, then they have to be in place first, so it's not as if he could work on many other cues and leave the themes till last.

[filmmusic 1,823]

I presume they're before the official scoring period begins since so much music has to written on such a tight schedule that I would think there's no time to sit around for weeks tinkering with the tune. B

Yes, I believe so too.

Specifically for the Geisha, since he had read the book and asked to score it, he had plenty of time to find a theme, while the film was shot.

Although he always prefers to see the film first, and then come up with ideas.

[Ludwig 1,120]

I presume they're before the official scoring period begins since so much music has to written on such a tight schedule that I would think there's no time to sit around for weeks tinkering with the tune. B

Yes, I believe so too.

Specifically for the Geisha, since he had read the book and asked to score it, he had plenty of time to find a theme, while the film was shot.

Although he always prefers to see the film first, and then come up with ideas.

Has he said anything about when he generally works on themes for a film?

[karelm 2,903]

In the latter half of the 20th century, many pianists specialized in a certain repertoire. Take the two that Miguel mentioned. Van Cliburn did mostly Romantic piano concertos and John Browning did mostly Baroque pieces. Even today, we have Alfred Brendel, a Beethoven specialist, and Angela Hewitt, a Bach specialist. And all of these are undeniably virtuosos even though they focus on a particular rep.

So by virtuoso, what is really meant is a master of one's specialty, whatever area that may be. For Williams to have played as a jazz pianist in Hollywood and with high profile artists would certainly qualify in that respect.

Ludwig, I don't think i would be so sure about your 2nd point.

Williams himself has said multiple times how difficult it is to find the right melody, and he could be working on it for days or weeks even.

So, we don't know how many preliminary sketches he may have done, until he writes the final sketch.

Yes, that's why I admitted this in the original post. Does anyone know of cases where JW spent quite a long time on "pre-composition", i.e., coming up with themes to use as material for the score? (And I don't mean CE3K, where he wrote some dozens of themes and it was up to Spielberg to decide which one to use - that's a different matter. I mean personally struggling to come up with the music.)

My understanding is he considers his work more of a craft. I don't think he has a "Eureka - that's it" moment while working but rather works very hard to refine it and is self critical so when it passes his self assessment (which is a struggle given the high standards), then it will have all the Williamsims that we know and love and like all great works, will have a sense of inevitability when one hears it that it couldn't have been any other way. I once asked one of his kids if they recall any moments where he came out of his study/office screaming "Wow, I just nailed this...Eureka, come and listen!" and the response was that it was more like he was just at work and there seemed to be just focus, intent effort rather than a sense of "this will be my great work" meanwhile these masterworks were being created. Don, his brother, said of JW that his idea of a fun relaxing evening was working. When going on vacation, he'd have a piano brought in to their hotel while the family is out at the pool...that was just how he would relax. The sense I got was that it was a job he did very well and cared about the quality of his work deeply and thoroughly, but he was just doing his thing - putting great effort - no lazy bone in his body (or mind), and he has been at it a very long time so has a good sense if something is going to work or not before putting in the work. Conrad Pope once said he's never seen anyone attack a musical problem as hard as JW does when working and this is the same sense I hear from many others.

With that said, I don't consider JW the modern equal of Mozart. Apologies if this was already covered earlier in the thread, but here are some differences:

1. Mozart was a revolutionary composer; Williams is ultimately a composer who looks to the past mostly. Mozart had tremendous impact on the course of western music with greater role of dynamics, duration, orchestration, drama, form, intensity, etc. He laid the groundwork for Beethoven and the end of the Classical period as it shifted to Romantic. In contrast, I view JW as the last of a line of craft oriented composers who were well studied, hard workers, but ultimately brilliant because of their work quality, ethic, and practical training since he's from the tradition of Korngold, Herrmann, Mancini, Goldsmith, Bernstein, etc.

2. I believe Mozart might have been a high functioning aspergers/autistic person. His musical memory of other people's music is not normal. I don't have evidence for this and since his body isn't found and there aren't descendants to positively match DNA with, I doubt we'll ever know for sure other than through anecdotal evidence if this hunch is true.

3. To Mozart, composition came easily saying: " got to write at breakneck speed—everything's composed—but not written yet." whereas JW is a craftsman who takes care of each note and idea. Mozart might have had ADD, and OCD whereas JW is a workaholic. The end result is two great but different composers.

[Miguel Andrade 1,262]

I know you don't like it, but John Williams, up until quite recently was primarily a film composer.

And if you compare his film works to his other output, that's where the bulk of his music was composed for.

I disagree. He was primarily a composer who worked mostly on film.

Saying film composer implies that he was just that. He never was just a film composer. All the time he kept working as a performer and arranger also, and kept writing concert works.

So he did much more that just being a film composer, though that's what he has become more well known for, and I agree, spent more time at.

[Ludwig 1,120]

In the latter half of the 20th century, many pianists specialized in a certain repertoire. Take the two that Miguel mentioned. Van Cliburn did mostly Romantic piano concertos and John Browning did mostly Baroque pieces. Even today, we have Alfred Brendel, a Beethoven specialist, and Angela Hewitt, a Bach specialist. And all of these are undeniably virtuosos even though they focus on a particular rep.

So by virtuoso, what is really meant is a master of one's specialty, whatever area that may be. For Williams to have played as a jazz pianist in Hollywood and with high profile artists would certainly qualify in that respect.

Ludwig, I don't think i would be so sure about your 2nd point.

Williams himself has said multiple times how difficult it is to find the right melody, and he could be working on it for days or weeks even.

So, we don't know how many preliminary sketches he may have done, until he writes the final sketch.

Yes, that's why I admitted this in the original post. Does anyone know of cases where JW spent quite a long time on "pre-composition", i.e., coming up with themes to use as material for the score? (And I don't mean CE3K, where he wrote some dozens of themes and it was up to Spielberg to decide which one to use - that's a different matter. I mean personally struggling to come up with the music.)

My understanding is he considers his work more of a craft. I don't think he has a "Eureka - that's it" moment while working but rather works very hard to refine it and is self critical so when it passes his self assessment (which is a struggle given the high standards), then it will have all the Williamsims that we know and love and like all great works, will have a sense of inevitability when one hears it that it couldn't have been any other way. I once asked one of his kids if they recall any moments where he came out of his study/office screaming "Wow, I just nailed this...Eureka, come and listen!" and the response was that it was more like he was just at work and there seemed to be just focus, intent effort rather than a sense of "this will be my great work" meanwhile these masterworks were being created. Don, his brother, said of JW that his idea of a fun relaxing evening was working. When going on vacation, he'd have a piano brought in to their hotel while the family is out at the pool...that was just how he would relax. The sense I got was that it was a job he did very well and cared about the quality of his work deeply and thoroughly, but he was just doing his thing - putting great effort - no lazy bone in his body (or mind), and he has been at it a very long time so has a good sense if something is going to work or not before putting in the work. Conrad Pope once said he's never seen anyone attack a musical problem as hard as JW does when working and this is the same sense I hear from many others.

With that said, I don't consider JW the modern equal of Mozart. Apologies if this was already covered earlier in the thread, but here are some differences:

1. Mozart was a revolutionary composer; Williams is ultimately a composer who looks to the past mostly. Mozart had tremendous impact on the course of western music with greater role of dynamics, duration, orchestration, drama, form, intensity, etc. He laid the groundwork for Beethoven and the end of the Classical period as it shifted to Romantic. In contrast, I view JW as the last of a line of craft oriented composers who were well studied, hard workers, but ultimately brilliant because of their work quality, ethic, and practical training since he's from the tradition of Korngold, Herrmann, Mancini, Goldsmith, Bernstein, etc.

2. I believe Mozart might have been a high functioning aspergers/autistic person. His musical memory of other people's music is not normal. I don't have evidence for this and since his body isn't found and there aren't descendants to positively match DNA with, I doubt we'll ever know for sure other than through anecdotal evidence if this hunch is true.

3. To Mozart, composition came easily saying: " got to write at breakneck speed—everything's composed—but not written yet." whereas JW is a craftsman who takes care of each note and idea. Mozart might have had ADD, and OCD whereas JW is a workaholic. The end result is two great but different composers.

Valuable insights from those close to JW. Thank you for sharing. It really gives us a sense of how much he works at what he does. (Composing while the family's in the pool? That's dedication to the music.)

As for the Mozart connections, I'm focusing purely on his musical rather than his personal side. If we compare the personalities of the two, they're radically different, So, yes, whatever Mozart's personality was, ADD, Asperger's, or what have you, I agree it's clearly not the same as Williams.

As we've discussed above, the main difference musically is probably that the initial idea for JW is arrived at in a much longer process than Mozart's was, as JW refines the ideas in a sort of Beethovenian manner. JW has said, however, that composing after those initial ideas are in hand is relatively easy, so the notion of JW as craftsman probably best applies to that process of refinement with those initial ideas.

I suppose where we differ in on Mozart's status in Western musical history. One of the main reasons he became famous was that he took what others were doing at the time and had been doing for some time, combined much of it and did it better than most, especially the fusion of German instrumental forms and Italian bel canto. I would consider him more the epitome of late-18th-century Western art music than a revolutionary. Revolutionaries change the game. Mozart was rather an exceptionally good upholder of the status quo, which is what was demanded of composers at the time and why there came to be a "classical style" that remained fairly consistent. To me, the idea of a revolutionary is more associated with Romantic composers who deliberately sought to be individual in their music, a trend that probably begins around the start of the 19th century, especially with something like Beethoven's Eroica Symphony.

In short, the analogy between Mozart and JW is far from perfect, but I think the similarities from a strictly musical perspective are striking, especially the highly memorable melodies, fusion of established musical styles, and flair for matching music and drama.

[karelm 2,903]

I suppose where we differ in on Mozart's status in Western musical history. One of the main reasons he became famous was that he took what others were doing at the time and had been doing for some time, combined much of it and did it better than most, especially the fusion of German instrumental forms and Italian bel canto. I would consider him more the epitome of late-18th-century Western art music than a revolutionary. Revolutionaries change the game. Mozart was rather an exceptionally good upholder of the status quo, which is what was demanded of composers at the time and why there came to be a "classical style" that remained fairly consistent. To me, the idea of a revolutionary is more associated with Romantic composers who deliberately sought to be individual in their music, a trend that probably begins around the start of the 19th century, especially with something like Beethoven's Eroica Symphony.

In short, the analogy between Mozart and JW is far from perfect, but I think the similarities from a strictly musical perspective are striking, especially the highly memorable melodies, fusion of established musical styles, and flair for matching music and drama.

Good points, Ludwig. I would just argue that JW has more in common with Haydn than Mozart. Never lazy, always imaginative...not revolutionary.

[Hlao-roo 389]

I know you don't like it, but John Williams, up until quite recently was primarily a film composer.

And if you compare his film works to his other output, that's where the bulk of his music was composed for.

I disagree. He was primarily a composer who worked mostly on film.

Saying film composer implies that he was just that. He never was just a film composer. All the time he kept working as a performer and arranger also, and kept writing concert works.

So he did much more that just being a film composer, though that's what he has become more well known for, and I agree, spent more time at.

If we're going to be so fussy about how Williams is categorized, does anyone know Williams well enough to know whether he'd identify first as a husband and father, and then a composer?

[Ludwig 1,120]

I suppose where we differ in on Mozart's status in Western musical history. One of the main reasons he became famous was that he took what others were doing at the time and had been doing for some time, combined much of it and did it better than most, especially the fusion of German instrumental forms and Italian bel canto. I would consider him more the epitome of late-18th-century Western art music than a revolutionary. Revolutionaries change the game. Mozart was rather an exceptionally good upholder of the status quo, which is what was demanded of composers at the time and why there came to be a "classical style" that remained fairly consistent. To me, the idea of a revolutionary is more associated with Romantic composers who deliberately sought to be individual in their music, a trend that probably begins around the start of the 19th century, especially with something like Beethoven's Eroica Symphony.

In short, the analogy between Mozart and JW is far from perfect, but I think the similarities from a strictly musical perspective are striking, especially the highly memorable melodies, fusion of established musical styles, and flair for matching music and drama.

Good points, Ludwig. I would just argue that JW has more in common with Haydn than Mozart. Never lazy, always imaginative...not revolutionary.

Ah, Haydn. Yes, now that you mention it, there are some parallels there as well. Haydn was a pretty routined sort of composer. He liked to set aside certain hours of the day for it and stuck to it religiously. And of course he didn't have those unusual qualities of musical memory or "seeing" a whole piece at once like Mozart. And imaginative is a good word to describe him as well - one can never predict how Haydn will stretch out a phrase. Things that are Williams-esque as well.

If I boiled it down to just one trait linking JW with Mozart, it would be the tendency to write regularly-structured themes (8, 16 bars and the like) that are eminently memorable and that leave an indelible compositional fingerprint, which doesn't really apply to Haydn. (After all, how many Haydn tunes are in the public consciousness, how many of Mozart's, and how many of Williams'?) It is arguably the one quality for which both Mozart and Williams are best known.

[Joni Wiljami 1,206]

Ah, we waited long for another try to lend Williams' name more gravitas by inventing peculiar connections to celebrated wunderkinds of the past. Next-up: 'Rare skin pigmentation similarity that Williams and Einstein share' and 'A list of Nobel Prize Winners that also like to drink Château Pétrus from expensive pumps'

The greatest party pooper as allways.

[filmmusic 1,823]

Ludwig, another very recent example about how long Williams is working on themes.

The interview for the Book thief, posted in that Book thief thread.

http://www.traileraddict.com/trailer/the-book-thief/interview-john-williams

near the end, you can hear him talk about working for a couple of weeks on the themes, with trial and error, even if it concerns a simple theme.

[Ludwig 1,120]

Ludwig, another very recent example about how long Williams is working on themes.

The interview for the Book thief, posted in that Book thief thread.

http://www.traileraddict.com/trailer/the-book-thief/interview-john-williams

near the end, you can hear him talk about working for a couple of weeks on the themes, with trial and error, even if it concerns a simple theme.

That's perfect. Thank you. It reminds me of the way Beethoven wrote the themes for his pieces. You can see in his sketchbooks line after line of the same theme being gradually honed and refined until finally arriving at the theme as it appears in the score.

Let's not forget, though, that Williams has said that writing the score after the themes are settled is "relatively easy". So he seems to have a two-pronged approach to composing film scores. First, the arduous and meticulous carving out of the thematic material, and second, the much more fluent and easier process of working that material out as the actual score. So, if I may, a "Beethovenian" approach to the composition of his basic material followed by a more "Mozartian" ease of scoring thereafter.

[Fabulin 3,510]

Such a comparison occured to me:

 

first film scores - Renaissance

Golden / Early Silver Age - Baroque

the Mancini era - Galant

the Williams era - Classical

the Zimmer era - Romantic

 

[Bayesian 1,359]

Earlier in this bumped thread, someone mentioned how JW works hard at his themes until they sound inevitable to the ear. This reminds me of how Bernstein once described Beethoven’s music, even using the same word, inevitable, if memory serves. And we all know how hard Beethoven worked at his music. 
 

I find it much easier to admire a hardworking creative genius like Beethoven or Williams than a (near) autistic savant like Mozart. Their stories (and their output) are far more inspiring to me because they show what hard work might get you in a world where little (if anything) comes easy.