Who except me also wished that John Williams wrote chamber music that is as accessible as his film music?

[GerateWohl 4,358]

The amount of chamber music written by John Williams is quite... managable. His duo for violin an viola comes to mind. And the pieces for solo cello. And his conversations for solo piano.Anyway, how ever much I like these pieces. When I like to listen to Williams music and I am in a chamber music mood, I mostly switch on some piano arrangements of his film themes, like the beautiful album of Simone Pedroni or one of the 4-hand piano albums of Paul Dukas.

But is there anyone else who would like to hear more chamber music by the master? A piano trio for example or a piece for string quartet?

I would even love to get the remaining violin arrangments for ASM just recorded by violin and piano instead of vionin and orchestra.

So, my desire would be: more chamber music written and arranged by Willliams for any kind chamber ensembles and that as accessible as his film work.

Perfect compromise is here probably the album "Schindler's List - The Music of John Williams" of Dan Redfeld. But I wished it contained more original arrangements by Williams.

Would also love to see there compositions of that kind that pay tribute to his jazz roots.

Anyone else has thoughts about that?

 

[Fabulin 3,511]

While I'm not a fan of chamber music, in a somewhat similar vein I generally prefer piano reductions of orchestral works to dedicated solo piano repertoire.

[GerateWohl 4,358]

I understand. My high phase of chamber started with Ravel's string quartett and ended about 15 years later. But in general Williams approach to music and the way He composes makes me curious what he would create If he further explored these kinds of ensembles.

[Fabulin 3,511]

Maybe 25 years from now a straight-to-desk-drawer work will surface, where Williams had some fun in the style of Haydn. Let's not count that out!

[Tom 4,654]

I have not thought about any of this in relation to chamber music, but I have with respect to his concert hall works in general.  I used to want the concertos and such to sound like his film music.  However, at this point, I want both.  We have hours and hours (and hours) of his film music to listen to.  We also have a good deal of music written in a different vein.  So, best of both worlds.

 

If his modern concert music took time away from flim scoring and such, it might be more of a zero-sum game sort of thing.  But he is just so productive with both that I find there to be no problem or regrets. 

[Score 770]

5 hours ago, GerateWohl said:

The amount of chamber music written by John Williams is quite... managable. His duo for violin an viola comes to mind. And the pieces for solo cello. And his conversations for solo piano.Anyway, how ever much I like these pieces. When I like to listen to Williams music and I am in a chamber music mood, I mostly switch on some piano arrangements of his film themes, like the beautiful album of Simone Pedroni or one of the 4-hand piano albums of Paul Dukas.

But is there anyone else who would like to hear more chamber music by the master? A piano trio for example or a piece for string quartet?

I would even love to get the remaining violin arrangments for ASM just recorded by violin and piano instead of vionin and orchestra.

So, my desire would be: more chamber music written and arranged by Willliams for any kind chamber ensembles and that as accessible as his film work.

Perfect compromise is here probably the album "Schindler's List - The Music of John Williams" of Dan Redfeld. But I wished it contained more original arrangements by Williams.

Would also love to see there compositions of that kind that pay tribute to his jazz roots.

Anyone else has thoughts about that?

 

 

 

Apart from pieces like "Air and Simple Gifts" and "Duo Concertante", there are a number of chamber pieces which are original arrangements of music from his films; they are published by Hal Leonard in the "John Williams Signature Edition" series, so they should have been done by him. They are mostly pieces for piano and one solo instrument (violin, cello, trumpet...). For example, this one is part of a suite of three pieces from Schindler's List arranged by him for violin and piano:

 

 

 

 

 

[Jurassic Shark 12,072]

4 hours ago, GerateWohl said:

My high phase of chamber started with Ravel's string quartett and ended about 15 years later.

 

It's a long quartet.

[GerateWohl 4,358]

34 minutes ago, Jurassic Shark said:

 

It's a long quartet.

Yes. And he keeps writing.

[artguy360 1,843]

I'm a big fan of JW's concert works and I think his greatest strength is working with the full orchestra. I've listened to several cello and piano versions of Elegy and none match the emotional heights and depths of the full orchestra performances.

 

[Bryant Burnette 654]

I don't necessarily find his non-film work to be as approachable as his film work.  I also don't necessarily feel the need to wish that Williams did only one type of thing just so people like me could hum them while I'm driving to Walmart or whatever.

[Thor 7,495]

To start the argument a bit wider -- i.e.  concert works rather than just chamber works.

 

There are some concert works that are closer to his film work, and thus more "accessible" -- the tuba concerto, the Elegy, the Five Sacred Trees, the fanfares, the first violin concerto etc. And then there are some that are pretty far removed -- the flute concerto, the wind sinfonietta, Conversations, the scherzo for piano and orchestra etc. (well, it's close to the kind of Williams you can hear in IMAGES or bits and bobs within scores, like the "Abduction of Barry", the sand people music, that kind of stuff, but fairly marginally within film scores).

 

To me, this is part of the make-up that makes Williams so fascinating to me -- the many different modes and moods and styles. That he can do a fairly "inaccesible" concert work one day and a 60s Beach Boys tune the next. Within certain parameters, Williams has the chameolon-like versatility that his occupation demands.

 

Now, the chamber works - in particular - also range across degrees of accesibility. The elegy or the Jolla quartet are fairly accessible, the duo concertante and "Conversations" are not (at least not to me). So I'm not sure there's an argument to be made based on these alone.

 

While I can sometimes glean some pleasure in listening to reductions (for piano, violin, whatever) of his film themes, I am more interested in listening to original works in their original instrumentational make-up. So I'd rather listen to the "Duo Concertante" (challenging as it is) than a Pedroni or Mutter album.

 

BUT.....I do agree with you, Geratewohl, in that it would have been awesome to get a 'jazz' album for Williams. And I don't mean like the Terry Trotter STAR WARS album, but a jazz album that plays his original, jazzy themes. Like that recent performance of the EIGER SANCTION theme from Kyle Eastwood & co. A whole album (to say nothing of a whole CONCERT) of that would have been right up my alley.

 

[GerateWohl 4,358]

I tend to mix up too many topics at a time. In this case the accessibility of Williams' concert work and his output of chamber music works. 

Basically, what I wanted to point out is, that I wished Williams created more pieces for classical chamber music ensembles, preferebly with jazz elements.

[pete 907]

I'd love an album of string quartets ala Festivity at Thornfield from Jane Eyre, and also an album of jazz pieces ala the source pieces from The Post. And more pieces using ensembles like the ensemble Stanley and Iris is scored for. If John could start on those now, that would be great.

[Tom 4,654]

 

Any thoughts on these?  

[Thor 7,495]

They're fine. We've been talking about them in the "Concert thread" that Steve posted recently, and also several threads in the past.

[Jurassic Shark 12,072]

10 hours ago, pete said:

I'd love an album of string quartets ala Festivity at Thornfield from Jane Eyre, and also an album of jazz pieces ala the source pieces from The Post. And more pieces using ensembles like the ensemble Stanley and Iris is scored for. If John could start on those now, that would be great.

 

OK then.

[Tom 4,654]

8 hours ago, Thor said:

They're fine. We've been talking about them in the "Concert thread" that Steve posted recently, and also several threads in the past.

Yeah, I know, but I figured if the question was explicitly about concert jazz pieces by Williams, they deserved special mention.  

[GerateWohl 4,358]

On 30/11/2021 at 2:16 AM, Tom said:

 

Any thoughts on these?  

I listened quite carefully to the pieces. The second one, the synphonietta, can in no way count as chamber music. That is more or less a brass, woodwind and percussion orchestra. Reminds me a little of Williams early dissonant TV work, that is for me good but a quite challanging listening experience. 

The first one, the odyssey, comes closer. Somehow to me it sound like a collage of spaceship conversations of the 3rd kind and classic jazz snapshots. Both interesting pieces. In both disiplines I am convinced, Williams could do better today.

By the way, after all it seems to me, for his concert works apart from the concertos for a particular instruments, Williams has two basic inspirations: Trees and conversations. Could that be the case? Somehow? A little bit?

[Chewy 2,388]

On 29/11/2021 at 11:24 AM, Thor said:

Like that recent performance of the EIGER SANCTION theme from Kyle Eastwood & co. A whole album (to say nothing of a whole CONCERT) of that would have been right up my alley.

 

Seems like we now have an album full of arrangements from Kyle Eastwood which includes The Eiger Sanction: