Popular Post karelm 2,890 Posted April 4, 2021 Popular Post Share Posted April 4, 2021 I really enjoyed this vintage interview where JW talks about contemporary music and his ambitions for the Boston Pops. JW comes across very professorially and I found it really interesting at the start that he admired Seiji Ozawa's performance of Maxwell Davies Symphony (I can't tell which one it is but pretty sure it is his No. 1). I have a personal connection with Sir Peter Maxwell Davies. In the 1990's, I was a student and found out he was coming to San Francisco to conduct a world premiere of a work the SFO had commissioned. I sent him an email and to my surprise, he responded inviting me to come back stage during the rehearsal and watch him work with the orchestra. I had the entire concert hall to myself. After the rehearsal, Sir Peter, looked for me and invited me backstage to his dressing room. He was so warm and inviting, I was not just a no body, I wasn't even a composition student. But he was very interested in seeing what I had done and giving me advise. That encounter had a big impact on me as a student and I never forgot his generosity and encouragement tempered with wisdom ("it's a very difficult path you're on and if you can make a living doing something else, probably better to go that route"). I found it quite interesting that JW thought so highly of him regarding the Symphony No. 1 though it's so different from JW's own style - it's a loud, hour long, atonal symphony. I thought it was interesting to hear JW talk so much about contemporary music and his ideas plus his own works in context. At 8:31, he says "Last year I wrote an overture..." what work was this? SteveMc, Marcus, crlbrg and 1 other 2 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Holko 9,401 Posted April 4, 2021 Share Posted April 4, 2021 8 minutes ago, karelm said: At 8:31, he says "Last year I wrote an overture..." what work was this? Since it's early 80s, it could be the Comedy Overture that was reworked into Monsignor's Meeting in Sicily and its theme used in a couple more cues in the score. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Faleel 5,278 Posted April 4, 2021 Share Posted April 4, 2021 6 minutes ago, Holko said: it could be the Comedy Overture that was reworked into Monsignor's Meeting in Sicily Isn't that the Esplanade Overture? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Holko 9,401 Posted April 4, 2021 Share Posted April 4, 2021 34 minutes ago, Falco said: Isn't that the Esplanade Overture? Oh yeah, that's its "proper" name. I was thinking of this interview bit: Quote In May of 1982, John Williams told Richard Dyer, “On my desk right now I have the score of a ‘Comedy Overture’ of my own — I hope to finish it in time to play it during June. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marian Schedenig 8,089 Posted April 4, 2021 Share Posted April 4, 2021 Williams says he was very happy with the 2nd season, talks about being in Tanglewood soon and discussing his future with the Pops "by Christmas", so I suppose the interview must have taken place sometime in the summer of 1982? Edit: After the sound comes back near the end, the interviewer says "now, in the spring season"… so it would have been during the spring of 1982 I guess. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jurassic Shark 11,957 Posted April 4, 2021 Share Posted April 4, 2021 6 minutes ago, Marian Schedenig said: summer of 1982 That's a great Bryan Adams song. Smeltington 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post karelm 2,890 Posted April 4, 2021 Author Popular Post Share Posted April 4, 2021 If this is 1982, then kudos to the interviewer for not asking anything about Star Wars, Raiders, or ET and asking lots of interesting questions about JW's creative programming ideas and thoughts on contemporary music. This is a very rare Golden Age interview and JW seemed very engaged with the subject. He did commission Sir Peter Maxwell Davies' "Orkney Wedding with Sunrise" in 1989, easily that composer's most accessible work but I think it says a lot about JW that he thought so highly of that composers atonal works. I love how he straddles and contemplates popular music and its context in serious music like his great predecessors, Prokofiev, Shostakovitch, and Vaughan Williams. It is also fascinating how extremely well versed he was in the contemporary artists of that time. Many of whom I've never even heard of. This interview clearly shows he was extremely knowledgeable and as I previously stated, professorial. Seriously, how rare is it to have a great, great film composer who understood popular music and contemporary concert music as well as he does? Jon Burlingame said there were a few "experts" before. Miklos Rozsa was considered a musicologist who possessed an academic knowledge of music that set him apart from his compositional achievements. Alfred Newman was considered to have concert conducting skills - he could have been a famous concert conductor if he chose that path. JW posses all these rare gifts along with his compositional talent and those are displayed here. Seriously, after him, there is no one left of this breadth of mastery. crlbrg, Bayesian, Marian Schedenig and 5 others 8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thor 7,385 Posted April 5, 2021 Share Posted April 5, 2021 It's a good interview that was shared here a few years ago (it was not on Youtube at the time, but from some Boston-based TV network site, if memory serves). Cool story about Maxwell Davies, karelm! karelm 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thx99 1,736 Posted April 5, 2021 Share Posted April 5, 2021 5 hours ago, Thor said: It's a good interview that was shared here a few years ago (it was not on Youtube at the time, but from some Boston-based TV network site, if memory serves). Here: http://bostonlocaltv.org/catalog/V_6OIPEM43A5JZJZY Linked to from here: https://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_60673B93607D4398A1809C94F08B2F20 Date of the interview is given as July 1, 1981. Jay 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
karelm 2,890 Posted April 6, 2021 Author Share Posted April 6, 2021 10 hours ago, thx99 said: Here: http://bostonlocaltv.org/catalog/V_6OIPEM43A5JZJZY Linked to from here: https://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_60673B93607D4398A1809C94F08B2F20 Date of the interview is given as July 1, 1981. Wow, so just at the end of his first season. Fascinating. So Raiders of the Lost Ark had just premiered a few days earlier than this interview for context. ROTLA premiered June 12, 1981. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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