Deadline interview with Laurent Bouzereau

[Meredith McKay 7,067]

'Music By John Williams' Director Calls Beloved Composer "Our Mozart"

[Chen G. 4,775]

Also "our Beethoven."

 

He suits both categories for different reasons.

[Thor 8,688]

My dad laughed at me when I put Williams on the same level as the holy trio of Bach/Mozart/Beethoven, and of course he was kinda right to. He's not there, "objectively" speaking (which is why that Rick Beato video from a few months ago annoyed me so much). But he's definitely there on a more personal level, even ahead of them. Ah, the joy of turning film music into a sporting event!  

[Luke Skywalker 2,014]

He cannot be on the same level...because they are all dead.

[Tom 5,228]

9 hours ago, Doo_liss said:

'Music By John Williams' Director Calls Beloved Composer "Our Mozart"

He is like Mozart, but with much more enjoyable and interesting music.  

[TownerFan 5,415]

1 hour ago, Thor said:

My dad laughed at me when I put Williams on the same level as the holy trio of Bach/Mozart/Beethoven, and of course he was kinda right to. He's not there, "objectively" speaking (which is why that Rick Beato video from a few months ago annoyed me so much). But he's definitely there on a more personal level, even ahead of them. Ah, the joy of turning film music into a sporting event!  

 

People laugh at such statements only because most of them are still snobbish about film music (I'm not referring specifically to your dad, of course, but more towards the general attitude).

 

I think it's absolutely fine to put John Williams in the same leauge of recognized classical composers from the 17th/18th/19th century and argue this objectively and not as a fan. He earned that place and whoever thinks he's not worth of it, they're either filled with prejudice or simply don't know his music. The usual strawman arguments that detractors use (he's a plagiarist; he didn't invent or innovate anything; he rests on his laurels; he doesn't write his own orchestrations, etc.) are becoming weaker and weaker as the days go by. I think it would be much more honest if these people will speak what they really think, i.e. John Williams makes them angry because he's famous and got popular by working for Hollywood.

[Not Mr. Big 4,746]

Mozart and Beethoven are normie classical fm picks anyway

[mrbellamy 6,877]

Mozart is just easy messaging but I've been convinced for awhile through others' arguments that Tchaikovsky is the closer analog for John Williams. They have similar points of praise and criticism, similar audience appeal, and I think/hope his film legacy will mirror the evergreen popularity of The Nutcracker or Swan Lake...I mean he has so many that even a lot of the popular ones could afford to fade away eventually. If everyone in the year 2124 gives a shit about ONE Star Wars, he's somewhere in the pantheon.

[BB-8 4,132]

"Deadline interview" sounds stressful.

[Mr. Hooper 3,749]

I have trouble placing him alongside Mozart, but, to echo mrbellamy, would feel more at ease with comparisons to Tchaikovsky, or Prokofiev.

[Jamie Dutton 7,656]

14 minutes ago, Mr. Hooper said:

I have trouble placing him alongside Mozart, but, to echo mrbellamy, would feel more at ease with comparisons to Tchaikovsky, or Prokofiev.

 

They're all dead

[Thor 8,688]

16 hours ago, Mr. Hooper said:

I have trouble placing him alongside Mozart, but, to echo mrbellamy, would feel more at ease with comparisons to Tchaikovsky, or Prokofiev.

 

Yes, and Ralph Vaughan Williams. I've always felt a connection there, not only in that they're both called Williams and have written film music, but especially those pastoral/bucolic element's of RVW's music that Williams often channels with such elegance. Makes sense that RVW is my favourite classical composer.

[Meredith McKay 7,067]

6 hours ago, Thor said:

 

Yes, and Ralph Vaughan Williams. I've always felt a connection there, not only in that they're both called Williams

And Vaughan can kind of sound like Vohn...

[Davis 3,331]

John Williams is nowhere near the genius of Bach, Mozart or Beethoven. 
 

Those who think he is should actually listen to Bach, Mozart or Beethoven more. 
 

Williams is an immensely talented classically trained composer who used what he had learned from aforementioned composers and many more e.g. Haydn, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev, Stravinsky etc. and created a unique musical body of work with unforgettable melodies some of which will stand the test of time. 
 

Is he as talented as Mozart? No. And the first person to acknowledge that is Williams himself, without being modest. Being super popular due to an artform and technology doesn’t make one better than the greatest there ever were. If that were true, Hans Zimmer would be called the Mozart of our time. But just because millions of people listen to your music on Spotify and YouTube, it doesn’t make you Mozart. 

[Arnaud2 42]

Comparing JW to Mozart or Beethoven would only embarrass him. 

Sadly, if the orchestra and classical music survive this century (which is not a given), I doubt our beloved maestro’s beautiful contribution to the arts will be remembered after our generation is gone just because the form of JW’s current concerts, made of many short pieces, cannot compare to the cohesive beauty of a great symphony. We are back to the light music standards played by the Boston Pops. We know there is more to the maestro’s work than this medley of popular themes, who else does? Who will? There is no dearth of great forgotten music of the past two centuries, often by composers who were the champions of their times.

[Bryant Burnette 710]

Never been that wild about Mozart, personally.  Beethoven is the best classical composer, in my opinion.  I have no idea if Williams is in his league or not, but I've got an entire media case full of Williams CDs and Blu-rays and whatnot, and only a handful of things by good ol' Ludwig Van.  So there's that.

55 minutes ago, Arnaud2 said:

Comparing JW to Mozart or Beethoven would only embarrass him. 

Sadly, if the orchestra and classical music survive this century (which is not a given), I doubt our beloved maestro’s beautiful contribution to the arts will be remembered after our generation is gone just because the form of JW’s current concerts, made of many short pieces, cannot compare to the cohesive beauty of a great symphony. We are back to the light music standards played by the Boston Pops. We know there is more to the maestro’s work than this medley of popular themes, who else does? Who will? There is no dearth of great forgotten music of the past two centuries, often by composers who were the champions of their times.

 

Yeah, but how many Mozart movies are performed live to orchestra?

[Tom 5,228]

I think Beethoven is the best composer ever to live.  I think Mozart was brilliant, and I have listened to him for decades.  After a few minutes, though, I find the music boring.  I also do not think that I am "missing" anything.  To each their own.  I just find it too restrained. 

[artguy360 1,940]

1 hour ago, Arnaud2 said:

Comparing JW to Mozart or Beethoven would only embarrass him. 

Sadly, if the orchestra and classical music survive this century (which is not a given), I doubt our beloved maestro’s beautiful contribution to the arts will be remembered after our generation is gone just because the form of JW’s current concerts, made of many short pieces, cannot compare to the cohesive beauty of a great symphony. We are back to the light music standards played by the Boston Pops. We know there is more to the maestro’s work than this medley of popular themes, who else does? Who will? There is no dearth of great forgotten music of the past two centuries, often by composers who were the champions of their times.

I don't see how JW's catalog of short 3-5 minute long, very memorable pieces is somehow going to make his music more forgettable for future generations. 

[Arnaud2 42]

1 hour ago, Bryant Burnette said:

 

 

Yeah, but how many Mozart movies are performed live to orchestra?

Funny. Once the memory of the movies we love fades their music will fade out with them.

30 minutes ago, artguy360 said:

I don't see how JW's catalog of short 3-5 minute long, very memorable pieces is somehow going to make his music more forgettable for future generations. 

My point is odds are they’ll never be serious concert pieces in that short form so will fade out of orchestral concerts repertoire.

 

Some themes will survive when in public domain and not much more.

[Mr. Hooper 3,749]

40 minutes ago, Arnaud2 said:

Once the memory of the movies we love fades their music will fade out with them.

I'm forced to agree.

 

When talking about the far-flung future, John Williams' memory will be tethered to the longevity of the big franchises, like 'Star Wars', 'Harry Potter', 'Indiana Jones', and 'Jurassic Park'. And if they should eventually fade from the cultural zeitgeist, so will his music, alas.

[TownerFan 5,415]

10 hours ago, Arnaud2 said:

Sadly, if the orchestra and classical music survive this century (which is not a given), I doubt our beloved maestro’s beautiful contribution to the arts will be remembered after our generation is gone just because the form of JW’s current concerts, made of many short pieces, cannot compare to the cohesive beauty of a great symphony. We are back to the light music standards played by the Boston Pops. We know there is more to the maestro’s work than this medley of popular themes, who else does? Who will? There is no dearth of great forgotten music of the past two centuries, often by composers who were the champions of their times.

 

What a grim view of the future. I so disagree with such a stance, which only reinforces the notion that JW's music is well regarded and celebrated in current times only because is tied to very popular touchstones of the so-called pop culture. While it may be true that anything may be forgotten in the future, I seriously believe that Williams' music can definitely survive the test of time beyond the popularity of the franchises he worked on. The audience loves it and they enjoy hearing it performed live. The fact a lot of his film music in concertized form is available only in short-form pieces may not be the best way to showcase its brilliance, but as I said elsewhere it's a duty of future conductors, curators and historians to pull out the scores and put together long-form suites that give the audience a chance to understand why this is great music as good as anything else within the established canon of the classical repertoire. But again, this is very old 20th century mentality that still carries the stygma towards film music and whatever is not considered highbrow enough to be performed on a concert stage.

 

Indeed, if can permit a minor rant here, I find hard to understand why even within the community of film score fans there is a niche of people who still look down at the repertoire as something minor or "not good enough" to be performed together with other classical music. If we perform Prokofiev's ballet scores, or William Walton's theatre music, or Shostakovich's light dance music in symphonic programs together with some of the untouchable warhorses of the repertoire, what's the difference of doing so with some of the best film music ever written? Great music always goes beyond its original purpose and creates a relationship with the listener for its both emotional and intellectual virtues. If it's through-composed, well written, with a sense of shape and form, it really doesn't make any sense to consider it inferior to other forms of musical construction like a symphony or a string quartet only because it originated as an accompaniment to a film. Of course there is need to rethink it a little bit as you cannot just play film cues and call it a day, but we already had great champions in the past like Christopher Palmer and Charles Gerhardt who truly understood how film music can be concertized in a way that you can make it shine for its pure inner brilliance.

 

16 hours ago, Davis said:

John Williams is nowhere near the genius of Bach, Mozart or Beethoven. 
 

Those who think he is should actually listen to Bach, Mozart or Beethoven more. 
 

Williams is an immensely talented classically trained composer who used what he had learned from aforementioned composers and many more e.g. Haydn, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev, Stravinsky etc. and created a unique musical body of work with unforgettable melodies some of which will stand the test of time. 
 

Is he as talented as Mozart? No. And the first person to acknowledge that is Williams himself, without being modest. Being super popular due to an artform and technology doesn’t make one better than the greatest there ever were. If that were true, Hans Zimmer would be called the Mozart of our time. But just because millions of people listen to your music on Spotify and YouTube, it doesn’t make you Mozart. 

 

Ranking artists one above or below another is quite a useless exercise and I agree that it may not make much sense to compare Williams and Bach. Two very different men living in two very different ages writing very different kind of music. Yet I strongly believe that it's no sacrilege nor hyperbole to consider John Williams an equivalent brilliant musical mind. He may have not invented new forms or disrupted what came before him (but here's a hint: even Bach built upon who came before him and even copied from his contemporaries, see Vivaldi and Buxtehude), but within his field he achieved a comparable level of brilliance to the point that he is considered an inescapable reference point for anyone who wants to write music for films, much like Bach inevitably looms large whenever a composer writes counterpoint and fugue. Of course the Maestro himself will never put himself against Bach, Haydn or Mozart, and will always put down such comparisons, but one can definitely argue honestly that his music is no less than what the culture of the western world has established as its greatest examples of musical beauty. Of course everything should be put in the right context and nobody with a sane mind will ever dare to say that Heartbeeps is as deep and profound as Beethoven's Missa Solemnis... But should we feel guilty or wrong if we find comparable morcels of brilliance in both "Shark Cage Fugue" and a movement from a Mozart sonata? The answer is no. Great music is great music, no matter when and by whom is composed. Surely one can feel the Divine more when going deep into any of Bach's Cantatas and much less so when listening to "The Menu" from Jaws 2, but there is great music for any kind of feeling in our lives. Again, putting a label on things, creating categories and cataloguing everything speaks more about how our mind needs some kind of order than the actual merits of the music.

 

As for popularity, one should always remember that even those great composers we nowadays revere as immaculate examples of pure art were also doing for money and success. Mozart is well known in that regard, but even Bach was a man very very careful about the financial aspects of his job and how well it was received; he was also very systematic in how he organized his work. Sadly the Romantic era instilled the notion that the artist should always be someone who never make any kind of compromise that would ruin his vision and inspiration, but that is a chimera that still obfuscate the judgement of so many people, especially within the classical elite.

 

7 hours ago, Mr. Hooper said:

I'm forced to agree.

 

When talking about the far-flung future, John Williams' memory will be tethered to the longevity of the big franchises, like 'Star Wars', 'Harry Potter', 'Indiana Jones', and 'Jurassic Park'. And if they should eventually fade from the cultural zeitgeist, so will his music, alas.

 

A lot of those franchises would already be well away from the zeitgeist now (and imho almost all of them indeed are) if it were not for corporations trying to keep them alive in any way, shape or form imaginable.

 

Williams' music however will likely be one of the very last thing to survive out of them, because it still speaks way beyond the nerd fandom aspect of those things. Things created by true artists survive the test of time and Williams' music has waaaay more lasting value than, my goodness, The Acolyte, Jurassic World, Fantastic Beats or whatever is done by the current creators of those IPs. Nobody of us will be here in year 2124 or 2224 to see if Williams' music is still being listened to, performed and enjoyed by future citizens of the world. But if I were a betting man, I'd put some of my money on the fact that it will certainly be so.

[Jurassic Shark 13,719]

 

On 07/12/2024 at 6:24 PM, mrbellamy said:

If everyone in the year 2124 gives a shit about ONE Star Wars, he's somewhere in the pantheon.

 

The Rise of Skywalker.

[GerateWohl 5,344]

I mean, Max Steiner's score for King Kong or Miklós Rózsa's score for The Thief of Bagdad are still a thing and well remembered today.

And these are more than 80 years old. And I believe, they still will be well received and celebrated in 20 years.

So, why would Williams' Star Wars or Jaws not survive a hundred years?

I am sure they easily will.

[Holko 10,712]

How many people now remember the events that Händel wrote celebrated beloved pieces for? How many people who still know and like pieces written for famous operas and ballets have actually seen the operas or ballets?

[TownerFan 5,415]

40 minutes ago, Holko said:

How many people now remember the events that Händel wrote celebrated beloved pieces for? How many people who still know and like pieces written for famous operas and ballets have actually seen the operas or ballets?

 

This is a very good point and reminds me of something I experienced just the other day. I was watching the live television broadcast of the opening gala for the opera season at La Scala theater in Milan, Italy. They performed Verdi's La Forza Del Destino, a truly amazing work. The overall staging was quite conventional, but one of the great choices they made was to use a rotating platform on the stage that allowed for some creative change of setting and was also used to sort of emulate tracking shots in a film. It was very ingenious and when seen on the television it really looked like a movie. The big moment in Act III, with the heart-wrenching clarinet solo, was particularly astonishing in the way the scene was staged and how it interacted with the music--it really reminded me of a scene in a classic Hollywood film of the 1940s. So, you can definitely say that opera influenced film back in the early days and now it's happening the other way around, with stage directors looking into the vernacular of classic cinema to evoke certain feelings in the audience. It's a way for a new audience to get in touch with the repertoire and it shows how the language of film (and therefore film music as well) informs how classical music is being presented. So I thought that a well done live to projection concert of a major film score can achieve a similar effect to a live audience, in a certain way. Music in a film is always subjugated to the narrative when compared to opera and one may argue that accompaniment music for a film is more functional than artistic, but in the case of Williams for example, where you draw the line? A lot of his brilliance is indeed in the underscore and how the thematic interplay goes throughout the whole film and this is absolutely comparable to what composers like Wagner and Verdi did in their operas.

[bollemanneke 3,701]

My thoughts:

 

I think there’s definitely truth in the bit about Williams not being as unique/talented as Mozart. I’m not counting Bach here because, as great as his contra-punctal writing is, there’s his cantatas as well and I won’t forgive him those, yet. As for Beethoven, could someone explain to me why his brass writing is so abhorrent?

 

Having said that, I think comparing JW to anyone is just a stupid thing to do. You can compare Vivaldi to Corelli or late Haydn to Mozart, but there has to be some level of similarity. I obviously understand the thinking in a way, but the truth is, there is only one Mozart, one Beethoven and one Williams, and thank God for that. Nobody else will ever write the Jupiter symphony, the Violin Concerto, the Nutcracker or Harry Potter 1.

 

Having said that, I also agree that Williams is not ‘helping’ the reputation of his own material by performing the same concert works ad nauseum. I recently had to sit through excerpts of Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet and it took only five minutes before I wondered: now, why aren’t they playing Hook in full? Then I wouldn’t have dropped off. Yes, it might be up to historians, but I think Williams is to blame here as well, for want of a better word. It already starts with him mercilessly chopping everything up for the OSTs. Why he is so happy ‘destroying’ his creations like that is beyond me.

 

As for who will remember him in 100 years: I don’t know. Once the films have left our collective consciousness, a lot of people might not listen to his music anymore. We will, of course, and the tunes will live on for some time, for sure. Why do we still listen to Mozart? I don’t know. Because someone somewhere realised that nobody could possibly care about the Second Viennese sh – I mean, school? Because there’s so much joy in his music? And why did I only just discover Alice Mary Smith? History is weird in that way. But I definitely think that if we want lasting recognition, we will need to move away from Hedwig’s theme and The Imperial March. We need to start talking about Williams' works, not his greatest hits, not least because no one will then ever really understand how great a storyteller he actually is. People need to hear Childhood variations in F minor and mournful renditions of Hedwig's theme to be able to marvel at the tapestries he has constructed.

[Chen G. 4,775]

On 10/12/2024 at 3:52 PM, TownerFan said:

A lot of his brilliance is indeed in the underscore and how the thematic interplay goes throughout the whole film and this is absolutely comparable to what composers like Wagner and Verdi did in their operas.

 

Verdi doesn't really use motivic recall all that much. ETA Hoffman (Undine), Carl Maria von Weber (Freischutz, Euryanthe and Oberon) would be a better example, as would Albert Lortzing (with his own Undine), although it's unlikely Williams knew the music of any of them: it was rarely performed in the states. His "model" was almost certainly Korngold.

 

Ultimately, the overall degree of integration in mature Wagner - to some extent already in Lohengrin but certainly in the Ring and going forward - is far greater than anything I can recall in any Williams' score. That's not to say Williams' efforts in this aspect of his composition - especially in his work on the Star Wars series, far longer than even the slowest-conducted Rings - are not extremly commendable: Surely the greatest achievement in this field between the Ring and Howard Shore's Lord of the Rings.

 

In mature Wagner, practically ALL the music in the opera is built from the leitmotives. That's not REALLY something very many Williams' scores aspire to, much less achieve: There are almost always lengthy "free" passages. Still more to the point, in Wagner the motives and their associative tonalities "control" the structure of reasonably lengthy stretches of music: What Wagner called "musical-poetic periods." There's already some precedent to this in Weber: the Wolf's Glen scene in his Der Freischutz is controlled by the diminish-seventh chord associated with Samiel: all the tonal centers traversed in the scenes put together spell out the chord.

 

Wagner takes this much further. For example, in his study of Das Rhinegold - typically looked down upon as the most prosaic of the music-dramas - Warren Darcy illustrates how the bulk of the third scene, a good 15 minutes, is structured as a nine-part rondo using the A major theme usually called "Arrogance of Power" (and people ask why I can't abide theme names...) as a refrain. In his guide to the leitmotives of the Ring, Darcy also remarks that "Wagner probably chose the key of A for Alberich’s downfall because 1.) it is a half-step lower than Alberich’s b♭, and 2.) it is closely related to Loge’s original f♯/F♯."

 

Generally speaking, Williams' scores won't hold to that kind of scrutiny. It's not really possible within the schedule of a conventional film score. *hides*

[mrbellamy 6,877]

14 hours ago, Holko said:

How many people now remember the events that Händel wrote celebrated beloved pieces for? How many people who still know and like pieces written for famous operas and ballets have actually seen the operas or ballets?

 

Part of this is also that film and television started competing for people's interest in these art forms. But like, these things are still mounted regularly for anyone who cares (and can afford it) and clearly there are enough people out there. 

 

The other thing is that we're only just now beginning to see how people view films 100 years later and the answer seems to be that of course we continue to value these things as cultural treasures. People were highly aware of the significance of "Steamboat Willie" when it entered the public domain this year. We're 85 years away from The Wizard of Oz so far and there's a giant popular blockbuster in theaters right now honoring much of its familiar iconography. I just saw the Chicago Symphony perform the score with the original film to a packed audience, it was delightful. That doesn't mean Herbert Stothart and Harold Arlen are synonymous with Mozart and Beethoven...but then again, who even casually contemplated such a thing in their time, like people do with John Williams?

 

On a base level, there's not much reason to assume that future generations won't care about Star Wars, Jaws, Schindler's List. We're really sitting here praying that John Williams can survive the brittle cinematic legacies of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg lol, give me a break. Chris Columbus is less formidable, sure. 

 

Also I don't know what's wrong with some of John Williams' most popular pieces being short and lite compared to a symphony. This is 69 seconds long!

 

 

 

Isn't that what suites are for, anyway? 

 

If in a century or two the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Boston Symphony Orchestra still find it worthwhile to honor the man on the occasional summer with a "John Williams Night" outdoor pops concert that attracts concertgoers, how will this be a bad thing for his reputation except to the snobbiest snobs? 

 

But yes, I think if he's going to sustain a serious reputation as one of the greatest of great composers ever, it would surely be accompanied by some regular interest in his concerti by major orchestras and deeper exploration of his greatest scores outside of JWFan. I mean, we all love and believe in many of these works, are we really such intellectual chopped liver? I'm not sure the day will come where people flock to hear a complete John Williams score without the film, but maybe some artistic director will eventually find it historically worthy to perform, say, the original Star Wars OST program. Or some new abridged arrangements of classic scores will emerge that become standard. Maybe Star Wars or E.T. could be mounted as a ballet. 

[Mr. Hooper 3,749]

Yeah, 'The Wizard of Oz', etc., is still remembered some 80 years later, but I'm talking about several centuries down the road...
 

So, yeah. In addition to the big franchises hopefully living on and keeping Williams' music alive, we'll need people like Gustavo Dudamel to champion his oeuvre in the concert hall.

 

But, of course, there's no telling what'll happen. History is fickle as to what falls into disremembrance. As someone here said, there's no shortage of great music from the past that has faded away.

[TownerFan 5,415]

On 10/12/2024 at 10:43 PM, Chen G. said:

Ultimately, the overall degree of integration in mature Wagner - to some extent already in Lohengrin but certainly in the Ring and going forward - is far greater than anything I can recall in any Williams' score. That's not to say Williams' efforts in this aspect of his composition - especially in his work on the Star Wars series, far longer than even the slowest-conducted Rings - are not extremly commendable: Surely the greatest achievement in this field between the Ring and Howard Shore's Lord of the Rings.

 

In mature Wagner, practically ALL the music in the opera is built from the leitmotives. That's not REALLY something very many Williams' scores aspire to, much less achieve: There are almost always lengthy "free" passages.

 

Absolutely agree. In the end that's the difference between opera and film scoring. In the latter, music will always be secondary to the main narrative, while in the former it's the main driving factor. Leitmotif usage in Williams may veer towards the functional than the purely artistic, yet he showed a high level of craftsmanship in that regard and he definitely brought it to a level of sophistication (esp. in the Star Wars scores) that is not ordinary in film music. Now, should we say that Williams is comparable to Wagner in every sense of the word? My opinion is that he can be absolutely compared within the parameters in which he operated (film scoring), but it doesn't make sense to establish who is the more genius. One can enjoy the works of both composers without worrying to rank them.

 

 

On 11/12/2024 at 1:51 AM, mrbellamy said:

If in a century or two the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Boston Symphony Orchestra still find it worthwhile to honor the man on the occasional summer with a "John Williams Night" outdoor pops concert that attracts concertgoers, how will this be a bad thing for his reputation except to the snobbiest snobs? 

 

But yes, I think if he's going to sustain a serious reputation as one of the greatest of great composers ever, it would surely be accompanied by some regular interest in his concerti by major orchestras and deeper exploration of his greatest scores outside of JWFan. I mean, we all love and believe in many of these works, are we really such intellectual chopped liver? I'm not sure the day will come where people flock to hear a complete John Williams score without the film, but maybe some artistic director will eventually find it historically worthy to perform, say, the original Star Wars OST program. Or some new abridged arrangements of classic scores will emerge that become standard. Maybe Star Wars or E.T. could be mounted as a ballet. 

 

Ballet music is a good comparison to film score, especially in the way the best of it can be repurposed into suites of reasonable length for regular concert performance. I think Williams is leaving posterity a fantastic catalogue in that regard with his Signature Series for orchestra, but there should come a moment where longer, more elaborate suites can be extracted from his film scores. Of course you need a great arranger/orchestrator who really knows and understands very well his music and is able to make reasonable choices without just cutting and pasting cues together. I have hope that there will be more interest from conductors and music directors in the future to explore more of his catalogue and this will lead to dig into his repertoire. A lot of his film music is already fit to be performed without too much rethinking needed. But in order for this to happen, the flame needs to be kept alive with ongoing study and appreciation of his work.

 

 

16 hours ago, Mr. Hooper said:

Yeah, 'The Wizard of Oz', etc., is still remembered some 80 years later, but I'm talking about several centuries down the road...
 

So, yeah. In addition to the big franchises hopefully living on and keeping Williams' music alive, we'll need people like Gustavo Dudamel to champion his oeuvre in the concert hall.

 

But, of course, there's no telling what'll happen. History is fickle as to what falls into disremembrance. As someone here said, there's no shortage of great music from the past that has faded away.

 

It may be a futile exercise to speculate what will be performed 200 years from now, but it's easier to do with a shorter span of 50 or 60 years. It's true that Hollywood movies in general are becoming less relevant than they were 20 or 30 years ago, so who knows if what we consider the pinnacle of the artform will still be meaningful for future generations, but see what I wrote above. It's also due to how the culture is kept alive. The way orchestras and conductors will present the JW repertoire in concert will be key to understand the possible trajectory of how well his music will stay alive and relevant in the following years. Will the live to projection become the overall standard? Or will it continue to be the classic "John Williams' Film Night" format with greatest hits? Will someone try to develop a different kind of format that will include long-form suites and lesser known material too? I totally believe that JW's music is a fantastic conduit for the audience to come and discover how wonderful is to listen to an orchestra play live, so there is bound to be discovered in terms of creative programming outside the standard two-act, 90-minutes night at the symphony.

 

As for great music which faded into oblivion, there is always that risk. But it's not that infrequent that things get rediscovered and re-evalued with a more objective eye shun of prejudice. It's all about how you present music to people and see how they react to it. There is so much baggage involved into what the cultural elites have considered "good" or "right" to be presented on a concert stage, especially in the 2nd half of the 20th century, that still lingers in today's mentality. We should get rid of many of those preconceptions.

[Chen G. 4,775]

24 minutes ago, TownerFan said:

Now, should we say that Williams is comparable to Wagner in every sense of the word? My opinion is that he can be absolutely compared within the parameters in which he operated (film scoring), but it doesn't make sense to establish who is the more genius. One can enjoy the works of both composers without worrying to rank them.

 

 

Hey, I'm perfectly fine with calling Williams "our Wagner" just like I was fine with Bouzereau calling him "our Mozart" and "our Beethoven." Those are all perfectly good parallels to make: But it's just important to realise that a parallel is not an equivalency. Yes, Wagner pioneered the leitmotif technique and Williams picks it up, but he uses it in his own way and for his own needs and ends up quite different to Wagner, certainly from the Wagner of the Ring: if anything, Williams' scores remind me more of something like Tannhauser.

 

24 minutes ago, TownerFan said:

In the end that's the difference between opera and film scoring. In the latter, music will always be secondary to the main narrative, while in the former it's the main driving factor.

 

Now you're bringing us into the weeds of Wagner's Zurich essays.  Becase, in his essays, Wagner says that in The Ring he will make music entirely subservient to the drama, thus making it a good model for film scoring. In practice, Wagner never quite lives up to this ideal - except perhaps in large parts of Das Rheingold - and by Tristan and Parsifal he's really left it behind.

[BachSkywalker 34]

As a performer and music professor, I can see plenty of evidence that if anyone can survive through the next century or so, it's Williams. Having performing entire concerts of Williams' works, it's amazing to see audiences, particularly older audiences who probably aren't as much of rabid Star Wars or Indiana Jones fans, receive the concert with rapturous applause, standing ovations even after the opening piece. Lesser knowns like The Cowboys overture gets just as much of a thunderous reception as Superman, for instance. It's hard to think of too many living composers who get regular play of entire concerts of their works and get that kind of effusive reaction. 

 

In teaching my music appreciation class, which is geared towards non-music majors, JW is a major touchpoint. As we go through the centuries and different music styles and periods, he constantly gets referenced by them. And when we finally get to film music at the end of the semester, I can tell, it's where they are the most attentive and enthusiastic.  Soundtracks of all kinds, film, television, and especially video games are extremely popular, and for many students represent "Classical music". 

 

Of course, no one can tell who will stand the test of time, but I think he, more so than anyone, is poised to remain in the music consciousness for quite some time. I also think that, like Korngold and Rósza, his concert hall works will eventually get more attention broadening his catalog for more people. 

[Damien F 1,780]

On 08/12/2024 at 3:24 AM, Mr. Hooper said:

I have trouble placing him alongside Mozart, but, to echo mrbellamy, would feel more at ease with comparisons to Tchaikovsky, or Prokofiev.

 

I feel like in order to fully appreciate Mozart, you need to be somewhat proficient in musical composition and theory to appreciate the genius of his work. At least that's how I feel. I really enjoy his more popular works like his 40th symphony, but his technical mastery goes right over my head. My musical taste is based on liking a melody, enjoying the sound scape of the orchestration, or the emotions elicited from the music rather than recognizing the technical mastery needed to compose it.  

[Mr. Hooper 3,749]

6 hours ago, TownerFan said:

The way orchestras and conductors will present the JW repertoire in concert will be key to understand the possible trajectory of how well his music will stay alive and relevant in the following years.

I agree that suites can survive just fine in a concert setting, but thinking about this, wouldn't it be awesome if Williams would take the wealth of music in the Star Wars series and shape it into a monumental symphony!

 

6 hours ago, TownerFan said:

As for great music which faded into oblivion, there is always that risk. But it's not that infrequent that things get rediscovered and re-evalued with a more objective eye shun of prejudice.

Oh, totally. I'm thinking of works by Berlioz that were not well-received in their day, but are now part of the standard classical repertoire. The cream does eventually rise to the top, but as you say, needs to be rediscovered and for people to champion it.

 

16 minutes ago, Damien F said:

My musical taste is based on liking a melody, enjoying the sound scape of the orchestration, or the emotions elicited from the music rather than recognizing the technical mastery needed to compose it.  

Same! But I wish I had the knowledge to understand all the complexities. You take what you hear, and that it works so well, for granted, and it almost seems effortless. But there's so much crafting in it which a layperson can't appreciate.

[GerateWohl 5,344]

9 hours ago, Mr. Hooper said:

I agree that suites can survive just fine in a concert setting, but thinking about this, wouldn't it be awesome if Williams would take the wealth of music in the Star Wars series and shape it into a monumental symphony!

In my eyes this would not necessarily done by Williams himself. I am not even sure, if this would be a good idea to let him do it. Often I think, he does not seem to be that confident of his film work as concert music, so he tends to just focus on main themes.

For fans of the complete scores it probably would be better if such concert programs would be arranged by someone else. Maybe one of his orchestrators? Bill Ross created a fine suite of Nino Rota's La Dolche Vita.

[TownerFan 5,415]

1 hour ago, GerateWohl said:

In my eyes this would not necessarily done by Williams himself. I am not even sure, if this would be a good idea to let him do it. Often I think, he does not seem to be that confident of his film work as concert music, so he tends to just focus on main themes.

For fans of the complete scores it probably would be better if such concert programs would be arranged by someone else. Maybe one of his orchestrators? Bill Ross created a fine suite of Nino Rota's La Dolche Vita.

 

Despite one would assume the contrary, Williams still has some sort of resistance about programming film music together with more established works from the classical repertoire, hence he tends to prefer the short form to showcase his own music so that it can fit into "Film Night"-type of concertized setting. I think he is absolutely brilliant when preparing these orchestral miniatures and in a few cases they're all you need from certain works, but in many other cases he's not doing himself the biggest favour and there is so much fantastic music in his repertoire that would be absolutely worth of being performed on the concert stage that it feels like a missed opportunity to let it unplayed. Using his OST albums as a reference point would be a great place to start from. Some conductors tried to convince him to have them prepare longer suites from some of his scores, but in recent times he always said no. It will be interesting to see what will happen in the future, because I believe there will definitely be conductors and musicians wanting to explore more beyond the Imperial March and the Flying Theme.

 

10 hours ago, Mr. Hooper said:

Oh, totally. I'm thinking of works by Berlioz that were not well-received in their day, but are now part of the standard classical repertoire. The cream does eventually rise to the top, but as you say, needs to be rediscovered and for people to champion it.

 

I think Williams will always have some champions among the classical world elite, which has changed and has become more welcoming towards film scores and also other forms of applied music once neglected from the concert stage. We now have two generations of musicians who grew up listening to his music and considering it standard repertoire, no matter what the intellighentsia thought 30 or 40 years ago. As I said, it could happen that stuff like Star Wars or Harry Potter will completely vanish from the zeitgeist and its music could follow suit, but there is so much inner beauty in JW's music that goes beyond its functional nature of accompaniment to a movie that I'm quite sure it will survive most, if not all, of the films for which it was written for.

 

15 hours ago, BachSkywalker said:

As a performer and music professor, I can see plenty of evidence that if anyone can survive through the next century or so, it's Williams. Having performing entire concerts of Williams' works, it's amazing to see audiences, particularly older audiences who probably aren't as much of rabid Star Wars or Indiana Jones fans, receive the concert with rapturous applause, standing ovations even after the opening piece. Lesser knowns like The Cowboys overture gets just as much of a thunderous reception as Superman, for instance. It's hard to think of too many living composers who get regular play of entire concerts of their works and get that kind of effusive reaction. 

 

In teaching my music appreciation class, which is geared towards non-music majors, JW is a major touchpoint. As we go through the centuries and different music styles and periods, he constantly gets referenced by them. And when we finally get to film music at the end of the semester, I can tell, it's where they are the most attentive and enthusiastic.  Soundtracks of all kinds, film, television, and especially video games are extremely popular, and for many students represent "Classical music". 

 

Of course, no one can tell who will stand the test of time, but I think he, more so than anyone, is poised to remain in the music consciousness for quite some time. I also think that, like Korngold and Rósza, his concert hall works will eventually get more attention broadening his catalog for more people. 

 

Fantastic and concise summation of what I tried to explain through my verbose posts. Thank you!

[Davis 3,331]

I think 50 years from now Williams’ Best Of- concerts will still be around and people will enjoy listening to his themes to Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Jaws, E.T., Close Encounters, Superman, Jurassic Park, Schindler’s List and Harry Potter. His themes. His scores will mostly be forgotten and will only  be listened to by those who today listen to an entire Beethoven or Haydn symphony. Meaning very old us.

[GerateWohl 5,344]

24 minutes ago, TownerFan said:

Despite one would assume the contrary, Williams still has some sort of resistance about programming film music together with more established works from the classical repertoire, hence he tends to prefer the short form to showcase his own music so that it can fit into "Film Night"-type of concertized setting. I think he is absolutely brilliant when preparing these orchestral miniatures and in a few cases they're all you need from certain works, but in many other cases he's not doing himself the biggest favour and there is so much fantastic music in his repertoire that would be absolutely worth of being performed on the concert stage that it feels like a missed opportunity to let it unplayed. Using his OST albums as a reference point would be a great place to start from. Some conductors tried to convince him to have them prepare longer suites from some of his scores, but in recent times he always said no. It will be interesting to see what will happen in the future, because I believe there will definitely be conductors and musicians wanting to explore more beyond the Imperial March and the Flying Theme.

The suite from E.T. that was performed in Tokyo was a brillant step in that direction.

[Davis 3,331]

People want to hear all of his famous themes, normies don’t have the attention span nor are they interested in listening to long suites. They want the catchy tunes that they recognize from their favorite movies. That’s just how it is. The other side of this spectrum is the LTP concerts where an entire score can be listened to while watching the movie. It’s kind of the modern equivalent of operas where you can watch the plot unfold by actors-singers in costumes and sets. Normies are willing to listen to the entire score to Jurassic Park if they can watch the movie simultaneously.

[Quintus 5,492]

On 07/12/2024 at 2:14 PM, Thor said:

My dad laughed at me when I put Williams on the same level as the holy trio of Bach/Mozart/Beethoven, and of course he was kinda right to. He's not there, "objectively" speaking (which is why that Rick Beato video from a few months ago annoyed me so much). But he's definitely there on a more personal level, even ahead of them. Ah, the joy of turning film music into a sporting event!  

 

Rick's proving an important service with his channel, he gets a pass.

[Thor 8,688]

I've tried three of his videos now, and it's not for me. But to each their own.

[Mr. Hooper 3,749]

8 hours ago, TownerFan said:

Some conductors tried to convince him to have them prepare longer suites from some of his scores, but in recent times he always said no.

I'd love to know the reason(s) why. Maybe the author of the upcoming biography put the question to him?

 

7 hours ago, Davis said:

People want to hear all of his famous themes, normies don’t have the attention span nor are they interested in listening to long suites.

Having never seen Williams perform live until last year, and then again last February, I of course wanted to hear his greatest hits. The big ones left to check on my wish list are 'Yoda's Theme' and something from 'Jaws' (preferably 'The Shark Cage Fugue'). But after the privilege of hearing all that, I'd probably join my voice to those saying, "Let's hear something different."
 

[Davis 3,331]

But you are a fan, not a normie.

[Mr. Hooper 3,749]

My point just being that what I wanted out of my first JW concert was hearing the famous themes, like the normies.

[Jesse 0]

I think the perfect form for Film music in the Concert Hall is the "Suite". Because of the Nature of film, the music can rarely be as well structured and coherently formed as a good symphony. So you would have to really rewrite and expand and change a lot to create a longform piece that was coherent and well developed from start to finish. (I think btw that John Williams is remarkebly good at creating well structured, developed and paced pieces even inside the predetermined limitations of the picture, but still.) In a Suite meanwhile you can have several more standalone pieces that dont necesseraly need to be as interconnected. So i think the perfect medium would be a 25ish minute Suite consisting of like 5 or 6 individual pieces that cover the most important material from the film and form a good whole. Williams has done these suites, although in most cases they are shorter, with some of his film music like Harry Potter or the crystall skull, but i wish he would have done one for everyone of his films. Or at least most.  

[Chen G. 4,775]

8 hours ago, Davis said:

People want to hear all of his famous themes, normies don’t have the attention span nor are they interested in listening to long suites. They want the catchy tunes that they recognize from their favorite movies

 

That's...not untrue.

 

See how Valkyrie is mostly known for the Ride, which doesn't even reach the top ten moments in the piece, or even in that act!

 

If that theme is still so well-known, almost two centuries later...

[Damien F 1,780]

I wonder what the normies thought when he included Jane Eyre in his Chicago concerts about 5 years ago. I obviously loved hearing it but I'm sure some in the audience were getting bored. 

[Mr. Hooper 3,749]

4 hours ago, Damien F said:

I wonder what the normies thought when he included Jane Eyre in his Chicago concerts about 5 years ago. I obviously loved hearing it but I'm sure some in the audience were getting bored. 

Probably what some of the audience felt when he performed 'The Book Thief' this year—polite indifference. But, lucky you! After the "evergreens," 'Jane Eyre' is definitely up there on my wish list.

[Once 719]

Funnily enough, friends and family who've attended Williams concerts with me told me the highlights for them were the music they didn't know beforehand.