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Here is what other composers are saying about John Williams


Lewya

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14 hours ago, Richard said:

What Eno is saying is immature and vitriolic.

 

By whose standards? The intense need for sanitized and orderly speech these days, however throwaway, is laughable. It would make for a poorer, less entertaining world if guys like Eno always get a thick checklist titled 'Please refrain from saying things like...' just because touchy fans could object.

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1 hour ago, publicist said:

 

By whose standards? The intense need for sanitized and orderly speech these days, however throwaway, is laughable. It would make for a poorer, less entertaining world if guys like Eno always get a thick checklist titled 'Please refrain from saying things like...' just because touchy fans could object.

 

I'm not "touchy", and, in no way, can I be described as a snowflake.

It's been quoted on this thread that Eno thinks that JW is " ISIS". If that's not immature and vitriolic, then I don't know what is?

Eno is an intelligent man. I would, simply, like to hear, or read, a considered argument, from him, as to why he dislikes JW's music. That's all.

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2 minutes ago, Richard said:

 

It's been quoted on this thread that Eno thinks that JW is " ISIS". If that's not immature and vitriolic, then I don't know what is?

 

Dude...pretty sure that wasn't a real quote. 

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9 hours ago, Thor said:

Yes, I do appreciate that kind of blunt honesty -- even if I disagree vehemently with the view in question. How is Eno's statements any different from that of Gilliam on Spielberg?

 

No different. But some people are really put off by "bitchiness" and may even lose respect for a person. When I hear celebs or even people we look up to speak like this, I always find its suddenly very easy to imagine them working instead in a warehouse, or a hairdressers.

 

Personally, it's no bother to me to shrug these sorts of things off (and be amused by them). But I can see why the reaction of others might be to look down their noses instead.

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10 hours ago, Richard said:

I'm not "touchy", and, in no way, can I be described as a snowflake.

It's been quoted on this thread that Eno thinks that JW is " ISIS". If that's not immature and vitriolic, then I don't know what is?

Eno is an intelligent man. I would, simply, like to hear, or read, a considered argument, from him, as to why he dislikes JW's music. That's all.

 

I wasn't necessarily talking about you (alone) but the comments in this and similar threads by and large do not read like 'i dislike snide remarks and are put off by this' but more like 'how dares he!' or 'stone him!' (with the express wish to obliterate the whole work catalogue of said offender). Brian Eno used snide hyperbole to express himself, which he is allowed to do (since it's not a verboten topic) and that's it. He isn't required to put forth 'considered arguments' - maybe he finds that boring, who knows. I just find the reaction to such utterances grotesquely exaggerated.

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On ‎25‎.‎4‎.‎2018 at 2:08 AM, Quintus said:

I see BloodBoal had made it to that Eno thread with his deletion crusade. Oddly though, Hornist has removed his own posts there too.

 

I removed some of the posts, most drunk post with bad english, furious about that dickhead.ForYourPleasure_Inside_Eno-e1392831447464.jpg

Dude looking like a peacock. No interest. Bad behaviour. Idiot. Mediocre. Actually lower than that. 

Windows 95 theme. Train station music.  Also that famous doorbell theme, I heard that the chost writer made that lower note and assistant helped with the upper one.

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6 hours ago, hornist said:

 

I removed some of the posts, most drunk post with bad english, furious about that dickhead.ForYourPleasure_Inside_Eno-e1392831447464.jpg

Dude looking like a peacock. No interest. Bad behaviour. Idiot. Mediocre. Actually lower than that. 

Windows 95 theme. Train station music.  Also that famous doorbell theme, I heard that the chost writer made that lower note and assistant helped with the upper one.

 

I think you’re still drunk.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Apparently Williams knows some of Higdon's music. 

 

Christopher Rouse, another Pulitzer prize winner and academic weights in in the comment section:

 

NnFvHlT.png

 

Gloria Coates, one of the most successful female composers alive liked the post as well.

 

Kevin Puts liked the post. 

 

Du Yun, a recent Pulitzer prize winner "loved" one of the images. Love spying on what these successful composers think of Williams, wether good, bad or indifferent :D

 

 

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I just found this in a tweet - Georg Friedrich Haas on the Star Wars: The Force Awakens score.

 

His wife asked him what he thought of the score.

 

Georg Friedrich Haas: "It was very good. He has a strong hand with his craft."

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  • 1 month later...

I just found negative comment (I think):

 

The Pulitzer prize-winning composer Mario Davidovsky said the following about Williams: "John Williams is to music history what an onion bagel is to the history of the space program."

 

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1 hour ago, Lewya said:

I just found negative comment (I think):

 

The Pulitzer prize-winning composer Mario Davidovsky said the following about Williams: "John Williams is to music history what an onion bagel is to the history of the space program."

 

 

OK, but who really cares? Williams simply writes good music, he doesn't have to be the modern day equivalent of Stravinsky or whatever.

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1 hour ago, Lewya said:

I just found negative comment (I think):

 

The Pulitzer prize-winning composer Mario Davidovsky said the following about Williams: "John Williams is to music history what an onion bagel is to the history of the space program."

 

What if the idea of space exploration was triggered by an onion bagel? 🤔

 

Karol

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Even if you look down on film music and don't care for his other work, you cannot deny Williams does what he does very well. At the very least his ability to make people interested in the orchestra and perhaps more open to "serious" music should be commended.

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8 hours ago, Disco Stu said:

I see Davidovsky is of Williams’ generation.  He seems to be just another example of how 20th century art music became a snake eating its tail.  Academics writing music for academics.  Younger composers have largely left that nonsense behind thankfully.

 

I will always thank people like John Williams and some other great film composers because they managed to partially invert that tendency. They showed that it is still possible to write music that is pleasant to listen to, while keeping to deliver a high-level artistic content. This feat alone is worth of an important place in the history of music.

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Curious, does anyone here know if John Adams has ever said something about John Williams? I have missed that if so.

 

I am curious what Adams thinks about Williams, I remember that Adams was critical of Spielberg in an interview.

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On 13. Mai 2018 at 7:59 AM, Lewya said:

I just found this in a tweet - Georg Friedrich Haas on the Star Wars: The Force Awakens score.

 

His wife asked him what he thought of the score.

 

Georg Friedrich Haas: "It was very good. He has a strong hand with his craft."

 

No need for big fonts, that's about as generic of a comment as they come.

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  • 1 month later...

The Pulitzer Prize winning composer Ned Rorem weights in on Williams and it is negative - this was back in 1987, mind you:

 

Interview: Certain film composers enjoy a very wide audience: for example, Jerry Goldsmith, John Williams

Rorem: Goldsmith is inventive and evocative and personal. But there's nothing John Williams has written that Richard Strauss has written better. Now that Strauss' copyright has expired, John Williams has cribbed verbatim the tone poems of Strauss who, during his lifetime, was one of the highest paid composers who ever lived. Yet Williams is said to have made a billion [sic] dollars from his uncredited riflings.

Interviewer: One also hears criticism that Williams steals far too much from Max Steiner and Erich Wolfgang Korngold as well.

Rorem: All art is in a sense taking from what has already existed and making it your own, but Williams doesn't make it his own — he makes it lesser Strauss.

There's hardly any distinguished movie music being written today because 9 out of 10 movies use amorphous rock scores, or no scores at all, or simply a meaningless oleo of bathos, like Marvin Hamlisch.

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Yeah, if we count the standard 70 years after death, it'll be next year, unless the family decides they want to leech off of him more like with Gershwin.

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1 hour ago, Lewya said:

Interview: Certain film composers enjoy a very wide audience: for example, Jerry Goldsmith, John Williams

Rorem: Goldsmith is inventive and evocative and personal. But there's nothing John Williams has written that Richard Strauss has written better. Now that Strauss' copyright has expired, John Williams has cribbed verbatim the tone poems of Strauss who, during his lifetime, was one of the highest paid composers who ever lived. Yet Williams is said to have made a billion [sic] dollars from his uncredited riflings.

Interviewer: One also hears criticism that Williams steals far too much from Max Steiner and Erich Wolfgang Korngold as well.

Rorem: All art is in a sense taking from what has already existed and making it your own, but Williams doesn't make it his own — he makes it lesser Strauss.

There's hardly any distinguished movie music being written today because 9 out of 10 movies use amorphous rock scores, or no scores at all, or simply a meaningless oleo of bathos, like Marvin Hamlisch.

 

OMG! This is clinical levels of delusion. :blink:

 

Btw, "there's nothing John Williams has written that Richard Strauss has written better" actually means the opposite of what I think Rorem was trying to say.

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More than delusion.  He simply refuses (at least in '87) to think of John Williams as a worthy composer, primarily because he is a successful one, I suppose.

He clearly hadn't heard Empire of the Sun yet.  

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No, I didn't post rerecordings of the Strauss piece (though I wouldn't blame you for thinking so!) Atbleast Strauss knew how to actually incorporate emotion! If you think this is bad, check out AI! He had the gall to steal from Strauss so blatantly, and think no one would notice!

 

Amazing how someone like Williams can so blatantly steal from the great giants, and become celebrated and praised by the uncultured simpletons of the world, especially America! Thankfully there's cultured people like me to see through the shroud.

1 hour ago, Steve McQueen said:

More than delusion.  He simply refuses (at least in '87) to think of John Williams as a worthy composer, primarily because he is a successful one, I suppose.

He clearly hadn't heard Empire of the Sun yet.  

 

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13 hours ago, Lewya said:

But there's nothing John Williams has written that Richard Strauss has written better.

 

Doesn't he actually mean "But there's nothing John Williams has written that Richard Strauss has not written better."? The quote as it stands, without the word "not", would actually mean he's praising Williams over Strauss.

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On 5/13/2018 at 12:59 AM, Lewya said:

I just found this in a tweet - Georg Friedrich Haas on the Star Wars: The Force Awakens score.

 

His wife asked him what he thought of the score.

 

Georg Friedrich Haas: "It was very good. He has a strong hand with his craft."

Daisy Ridley likes a man who's good with his hands..

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  • 3 months later...

The esteemed Thomas Adés recently in an interview said that he loves Williams (and Waxman, Bernstein, Legrand) in film music:

 

Obviously, there is a fine tradition of classical composers scoring film. Were there particular composers that inspired you?

 

Adés: "In film music, I love Franz Waxman, Michel Legrand, Elmer Bernstein, and John Williams. Of classical composers who have written for film: Sergei Prokofiev, Per Nørgård."

 

https://bleeckerstreetmedia.com/guilds/editorial/interview-with-composter-thomas-ades?return=colette

 

Mason Bates wrote this back in 2016 about E.T.:

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

Not composers, but I did not want to create a new thread just for this. For those of you who are interrested to hear some LSO members' thoughts on John Williams music.

 

 

EDIT : Of course question are in french but answers are in english :)

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On 11/18/2018 at 10:44 PM, Lewya said:

More Kevin Puts:

 

Puts has written in virtually every musical genre; is there something new he’d like to try?

 

Puts: “I’d like to write film music. I think I’m just as influenced in my own music by film music, and film itself as I am by art music. Some of the first music I really loved was John Williams’s film scores when I was a kid—Star Wars, E.T. I still love them deeply, and I have the scores now. I hope I can find a way to do that.”

 

https://www.sfsymphony.org/Watch-Listen-Learn/Read-Program-Notes/Articles-Interviews/Original-Voices-Composers-Kevin-Puts-and-Anna-Clyn.aspx

 

Yes, he's a huge JW fan.  We talked about it after a rehearsal of his piano concerto with the LA chamber orchestra.  After the very fine rehearsal we went for a walk around the music center and he made his admiration for film music and JW very clear.  No snobbery from him and he would make a very fine film composer considering his considerable talent and dramatic instinct as displayed in his operas and symphonies.

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