0:00

I'm John Banther, and this

0:02

is Classical Breakdown. From

0:04

WETA Classical in Washington, we

0:06

are your guide to classical music.

0:09

In this episode, I'm joined by WETA

0:11

Classical's Evan Keely, and we're talking about

0:13

one of the world's most recognizable composers,

0:15

John Williams. We take you back in

0:17

time to his early life and career,

0:19

like his first score for a film

0:22

while he was in the military and

0:24

how he met Steven Spielberg. We show

0:26

you what sets him apart from other

0:28

film composers, aspects of his process, what

0:30

to listen for, and we dive into his

0:32

non -film music too, some of which might

0:34

surprise you. Okay,

0:39

Evan, as we start off this episode on

0:41

John Williams, I thought what better way to

0:43

start than with a tune I think everyone

0:45

will recognize. Thank

0:49

you. Oh

0:52

wait, Evan, does not everyone know the 1981

0:54

Andy Kaufman sci -fi comedy film about two

0:56

robots who fall in love called Heart

0:58

Beeps? Are we unfamiliar with that? It's a

1:00

classic, John. Everybody's favorite movie. I never

1:02

heard of it in all the days of

1:05

my life until you brought it up

1:07

in this conversation. I had not

1:09

heard of it either. I think it's the

1:11

only one that could technically be considered a

1:13

flop. I think it's got a zero percent

1:15

on rotten tomatoes. Andy Kaufman said he would refund

1:17

everyone who saw it. And I saw a

1:19

quote from a kid who said, even at

1:21

nine years old I felt sad leaving the

1:23

theater because even at that age I had

1:25

understood I had lost 90 minutes of

1:27

my life that I would not get back

1:29

but of course we love John Williams

1:31

and he has become his own entity today

1:33

and we are going to dive into

1:35

all of that. So

1:37

Evan what was the first movie with

1:39

his music that you truly remembered and

1:42

loved? For me it was Jurassic Park. Thinking

1:50

of the kitchen scene with the velociraptors,

1:52

I watch that again, the way

1:54

he uses winds, piano, and percussion. Oh

1:57

my gosh, that was absolutely traumatizing

1:59

when I was kid. And then the

2:01

trumpet playing in the opening tune

2:03

is just one of the most soaring

2:05

lines. And I freaked out once

2:07

when I found a passage in an

2:09

etude book from like 200 years

2:11

ago that was very similar to that

2:13

tune. His music is so effective

2:15

at evoking those emotions. I was a

2:17

little too young for scary movies

2:19

like Jaws when it came out in

2:21

1975. Yes, I'm a few years

2:23

older than you, John. But even I

2:25

knew the famous minor second motif, dum, dum,

2:27

dum, dum. Everybody knows that. My first

2:29

John Williams film score was two years later with

2:31

Star Wars. Serious Star

2:33

Wars fans would call it a episode

2:36

four, a new hope. But in those days,

2:38

it was just Star Wars. So much

2:40

to say about Star Wars. We'll get into

2:42

that at least a little bit in

2:44

our conversation today. I'll suddenly have

2:46

a lot to say about it. I was

2:48

still in elementary school when the first film

2:50

in the Indiana Jones franchise came out, the

2:52

summer of 81. Great as at

2:54

the Lost Ark. So it's not an exaggeration

2:56

to say that I grew up with

2:58

the music of John Williams. I'll even go

3:01

a step further and say that if you're

3:03

an American and a Gen Xer like I

3:05

am, we all grew up with John Williams.

3:08

Absolutely. And if I had to guess,

3:10

at who was the most heard

3:12

and recognized composer today, it is John

3:15

Williams. I think so. Just describing his

3:17

prominence or his influence, it feels a

3:19

little silly. This was a composer

3:21

you knew. Before you knew his

3:23

name. I mean, think of all the awards.

3:25

He's got them except the Tony, you know,

3:27

whatever, but yet. Not yet. Not yet anyway.

3:29

But this is a composer who actually there's

3:31

a lot of stuff I did not know.

3:33

So I hope for everyone listening, there's going

3:35

to be a lot of discovery too. So

3:38

let's get into some of his

3:40

early life, Evan. He was

3:42

born February 8th, 1932 in Flushing,

3:44

Queens, in New York City. His

3:47

father was Johnny Williams, a

3:49

jazz drummer and percussionist. I think he

3:51

also played in the CBS radio orchestra a

3:53

bit, and his mother was from Boston. Then,

3:56

at age 16, in 1948, the family

3:58

moved to LA, Los Angeles,

4:01

and he graduates in 1950

4:03

from the famous, now

4:05

North Hollywood High School. They have

4:07

hundreds of notable alumni. I

4:09

could not find a lot of information

4:11

about who he was studying with as

4:13

a child. At this time, I read

4:15

maybe Bobby Van Epps in LA, but

4:17

he eventually graduates, and then he studies

4:19

composition. at UCLA with Mario

4:21

Casto Nuevo Tedesco. I did not know

4:23

that. I would not have guessed that.

4:26

Yeah, I did not know this either.

4:28

So as you and I were diving

4:30

into this, I learned a lot too.

4:32

Casto Nuevo Tedesco, an Italian composer, had

4:34

a Jewish ancestry. He was

4:36

a generation older than John Williams,

4:38

and he was one of the

4:40

many composers and artists and creative

4:43

people who fled Europe as fascism

4:45

rose there, the race laws under

4:47

Mussolini. He came to the

4:49

United States, eventually found himself

4:51

in Hollywood as a film composer.

4:53

And he was also a

4:55

composer whose music is infused with

4:57

a love of great literature, ancient

5:00

epics. He turns to the

5:02

Bible or Escalus or Shakespeare. And

5:04

I have to wonder about

5:06

the extent to which that informed

5:08

his teaching with John Williams.

5:10

and the approach to composing film

5:12

music. So this music

5:14

is so much a part of

5:16

the storytelling around these time honored

5:18

themes. You see these films that

5:20

Williams has composed music for and

5:22

they have these great epic themes,

5:25

a lot of them. Williams as

5:27

a composer doesn't shy away from

5:29

these kinds of heroes journey types

5:31

of stories. And I think one

5:33

of the most attractive qualities of

5:35

his music is how it expresses

5:37

the emotions. connected to

5:39

narratives of heroic struggle. And

5:42

I even wonder if one of the

5:44

reasons Heart Beeps wasn't a commercial and

5:46

critical success. I don't know. I haven't

5:48

seen it. I can't say with much

5:50

confidence. But I wonder if one of

5:52

the reasons it didn't succeed is because

5:55

maybe John Williams isn't the best composer

5:57

for something lighthearted and quirky and weird

5:59

like that. Although, of course, his music

6:01

certainly shows a fine sense of humor

6:03

among many of the things. and

6:05

I'll put the trailer to heartbeaps on the show

6:08

notes page. You can hear some of his music, and

6:10

honestly, I did not even finish the trailer, and

6:12

I looked at the comments, and some people also said,

6:14

I didn't even get through the trailer. But,

6:17

so he is studying, he

6:19

is playing piano, and

6:21

he's especially enveloped in jazz.

6:24

And then in 1951, so just a

6:26

little bit later, he joins the

6:28

U .S. Air Force, and he does

6:30

work with the U .S. Air Force

6:32

Band playing piano, also bass, he's arranging

6:34

music. And then he's

6:36

stationed in St. John's, Newfoundland. And

6:38

this was a surprise to me,

6:40

Evan, because I did not know

6:42

his first film score, if we

6:44

can call it that, came at

6:47

this time when he was 20

6:49

for the 1952 You Are Welcome,

6:51

a promotional film for the Newfoundland

6:53

Tourist Information Office. I

6:55

don't know what Newfoundland is doing today, but

6:57

I would absolutely be bragging. You know,

6:59

here's our informational video, scored by John Williams.

7:01

Makes me wanna go visit there. I

7:05

mean, I'll also put that on

7:07

the show notes page. It is

7:09

something to see and it's incredible

7:11

to hear his music, his

7:13

first, I guess, with moving pictures. Just

7:16

really something special. Then

7:19

in 1955, he finishes his

7:21

service with the U .S. Air Force. He

7:23

goes to New York City and he studies

7:25

at Juilliard. Now, Evan,

7:27

he went to several different schools,

7:29

but I don't think he ever

7:31

actually graduated from a particular university

7:34

that's not... know, too uncommon especially. in

7:36

those decades, you know, wandering from

7:39

school to school, teacher to teacher.

7:41

Studying and not taking a degree,

7:43

yeah, that's certainly an honorable way

7:45

to learn. There's a reason why

7:47

you see so -and -so attended Berkeley,

7:49

not graduated Berkeley, for example. But

7:51

he studies at Julliard with Rosina

7:53

Levine or Levin, I think is

7:55

your pronounce her name, a pianist

7:58

who was born in 1880 and

8:00

one of the most sought -after

8:02

piano teachers of this time, like

8:04

ever. And John Williams is her

8:06

studio. From what I read,

8:08

Evan, he was also at this time wanting

8:10

to be a concert pianist and a

8:12

reason why he was studying with that pianist.

8:14

I also heard that just being in

8:16

that studio granted you a level of cache

8:18

or whatever, but he realized it would

8:20

not work out for him. He said he

8:22

could write better than he could play. But

8:25

just imagine for a second, You're playing

8:27

piano and you're playing jazz as well,

8:30

and you're playing in clubs in the

8:32

1950s. That sounds incredibly exciting. Yeah, New

8:34

York City in the 1950s is a

8:36

pretty exciting place musically, especially in the

8:38

jazz scene. But obviously, here's John Williams

8:40

going to Juilliard and thinking about it

8:42

being a concert pianist. He's already had

8:44

some experience as a film composer, so

8:46

he's really dipping his toe into a

8:48

lot of different waters and finding out

8:50

who he is as a musician. So

8:53

after popping around a few schools, playing

8:55

in jazz clubs, he eventually makes his way

8:57

back to LA, and in

8:59

1958 he gets his first

9:01

feature film, it's called Dadio. It

9:04

did not have a huge budget,

9:06

and when you watch it, you

9:08

kind of see that. It was

9:10

$100 ,000 in 1958, which sounds

9:12

like a lot of money back

9:14

then, but studios were already putting

9:16

out $1 .72 million movies. And

9:18

this one, I like the music. It

9:21

reminds me a bit of Catch Me

9:23

If You Can, some of the jazz

9:25

-inspired elements. And

9:32

now in his 37, he gets

9:34

what... Might not be called a big

9:36

break, but he gets what he

9:38

says was the first film I ever

9:41

did for a major super talent

9:43

director, William Weiler, How to Steal a

9:45

Million. And that was in 1966. And

9:48

then the following year, he

9:50

received an Oscar nomination for Valley

9:52

of the Dolls. Yeah,

10:02

but here he is already

10:04

in his mid 30s. He's already

10:06

getting a lot of experience

10:08

in the industry now 1972 comes

10:11

and the movie images by

10:13

Robert Altman is Well, that's when

10:15

it's premiered. It's produced a

10:17

year or two before that and

10:19

John Williams writes the score

10:21

This is very different music of

10:23

John Williams. He was inspired

10:25

by Shako Hachi flute playing a

10:28

Japanese instrument. And he said,

10:30

he said this, the score

10:32

used all kinds of effects for piano, percussion

10:34

and strings. It had a debt to

10:36

Varese, another composer, whose music enormously interested me.

10:38

If I had never written film scores,

10:40

if I had proceeded writing concert music, it

10:42

might have been in this vein. I

10:45

think I would have enjoyed it. I might

10:47

have been fairly good at it, but

10:49

my half did not go that way. Yeah,

10:51

I'm not familiar with this film, John,

10:53

and you brought it to my attention. I

10:55

listened to some of the music. Yeah. You

10:58

know, my first guess would not

11:00

have been John Williams's first music,

11:02

but you definitely hear some of

11:04

the elements of his more familiar

11:07

style, even in this 1971 score.

11:09

It's quite different, maybe

11:11

edgier, maybe more, quote unquote,

11:13

modern. both in terms of

11:15

the jazz influence, and he talks about an

11:17

influence like Verrez, maybe more of that

11:19

experimental kind of vein. The Japanese

11:21

composer and percussionist, Stomo Yamashita, was

11:23

also featured in that score. In

11:26

fact, I'm not even sure which

11:28

composer wrote what for this film.

11:30

Clearly a very creative collaboration there,

11:33

and you talked about the other

11:35

Japanese influences there. Very

11:37

creative music. It's a horror film,

11:39

I guess. I'm not familiar

11:41

with the film. Definitely has a...

11:43

that spine tingling kind of,

11:45

you know, this very evocative, very

11:48

chilling, very absorbing

11:50

kind of music and really

11:52

interesting stuff. Yeah,

11:57

almost, I don't know if it's

11:59

right, I know Hitchcock as well.

12:01

Psychological thriller might be the genre,

12:03

I'm not sure, but yeah. So

12:09

after this he makes

12:11

a score for the movie

12:13

Cowboys in 1972 and

12:15

it's after seeing this movie

12:17

that Steven Spielberg who

12:20

requests to meet Williams

12:22

and actually have him score some of

12:24

his stuff, I guess. Spielberg was

12:26

very young. He was in his 20s,

12:28

and he was about to make

12:30

his directorial debut with the Sugarland Express.

12:32

And Williams described meeting him like,

12:34

he seemed like a young teenager. He

12:37

had never been to a fancy restaurant before. He

12:39

didn't know what to do when we were meeting. But

12:42

he knew more about film music

12:44

than I ever did. He said

12:46

he just knew everything, all the

12:48

composers, just everything. I mean,

12:50

here's Spielberg in his mid -twenties. He sees

12:52

this movie Cowboys, and he's like, who

12:54

wrote this music? I gotta get this person.

12:57

You know, clearly an eye for an

13:00

eye and an ear for talent.

13:02

Yes, and I mean, that is a

13:04

meeting that has had un... I

13:06

mean, hugely consequential for world culture. Yes.

13:08

So what sets John Williams apart?

13:10

What makes him successful? I

13:13

think a big part of it

13:15

was that he was able to

13:17

create unforgettable motifs and ideas with

13:19

so few notes. I mean,

13:21

take the next movie he did with

13:23

Spielberg after Sugarland, just hearing

13:25

those notes. You know. I mean, there's

13:27

a lot of people a certain

13:29

generation. I think they didn't even want

13:31

to swim in pools because of

13:33

that. Now, what sets

13:36

him apart? This is what sets him apart. When

13:38

Spielberg made Jaws, he made the movie,

13:40

he filmed it and everything, he

13:42

used the score to images that... horror

13:44

psychological horror movie as a temp

13:47

track, which is a completely different sound.

13:49

So a temp track in this

13:51

instance is when a director will use

13:53

music that matches the tone, the

13:55

energy, the orchestration. It matches what they

13:57

want, but they don't have the

13:59

music yet. So then someone else comes

14:01

along and either puts in better

14:04

music, writes a musical or whatever, it

14:06

gets replaced. So he does

14:08

this and John Williams sees this

14:10

with the images music. And then he

14:12

tells Spielberg, you know, I. You're

14:14

I think you're completely wrong on this. It's

14:16

not the high shrieking violins and everything and then

14:19

he actually when he met with him for

14:21

this music He played the two -note motif on

14:23

the piano and Spielberg thought he was joking. I

14:25

mean like Just played on the piano.

14:27

It's like what what what is this

14:29

and William said to tell him? No,

14:32

just trust me You know, it's it's

14:34

gonna be scary and then he said

14:36

you know even the softer you play

14:38

it the scarier It is it's that

14:40

primordial fear that he was able to

14:43

to strike on all of us, but also to tell

14:45

Spielberg, no, I think you're wrong. I don't

14:47

think it's this at all. I think it's the

14:49

opposite of that. And there's even a sense, I

14:51

think I read somewhere that Williams

14:53

was saying that because the shark is

14:55

in the depths, that you want

14:58

something low, the high strings of images,

15:01

the images soundtrack is this whole other

15:03

dimension of terror, where you have

15:05

this this threat from below you, you

15:07

want this low music. And it

15:09

sounds almost, it sounds like a joke,

15:11

right? Like, are you serious? And

15:14

yet, we all know now that one

15:16

of the most effective musical gestures

15:18

in any film ever. Yes. And

15:20

it has a fantastic tuba solo in

15:22

the opening, too. And actually, John Williams

15:24

has done more for the tuba than

15:26

any composer, I think, alive right

15:28

now. Maybe we'll talk about that in

15:30

a bit. But this is the time, Evan,

15:32

I think he becomes unstoppable. He becomes

15:34

the John Williams we know because he had

15:36

already done, you know, over two dozen

15:38

films. He had a couple of nominations. He

15:41

was successful, but, you know... plenty of

15:43

other successful people, you know, doing this in

15:46

Hollywood. And I think this is what

15:48

it means to be, you know, in the

15:50

right place, in the right time. He's

15:52

in Hollywood where money and studios are dumping

15:54

money and producing a ton of things. And

15:57

he's at the right time in his

15:59

career. He's in his early forties. He's done

16:01

some movies he has experience. And I

16:03

think now he's just, he's at the top

16:05

of his game, I guess. And if

16:08

you look at the history of cinema, I'm

16:10

certainly no expert, but Jaws really changed

16:12

the way people experienced movies, like the idea

16:14

of the super blockbuster. Jaws

16:16

is really a turning point in

16:18

the development of that cultural phenomenon.

16:20

And John Williams, you know,

16:22

what's the first thing you think of

16:24

when you think of that movie? I

16:26

mean, you see the shark in your

16:28

mind, but you hear that music. You

16:30

know, this is, it's just such a...

16:32

part of the experience, and there he

16:34

is in his mid -40s, and he's

16:36

part of this incredible cultural phenomenon. And

16:39

just from there, of course, he's

16:42

ascending to higher heights

16:44

of success. He

16:46

ascends with the next film, especially Close

16:48

Encounters of the Third Kind. This is

16:50

one I also saw as a kid.

16:52

A bunch of his movies, I don't

16:54

know where I should find out. Where

16:56

it was but there was like a

16:59

couple of TV channels that would play

17:01

old movies just non -stop so Back in

17:03

the day when you'd watch a movie,

17:05

but you'd have to just watch wherever

17:07

you picked it up at you couldn't

17:09

rewind or something But close encounters came

17:11

out in 1977 again a famous motif

17:14

that says so much with so few

17:16

notes If everything's ready here on the

17:18

dark side of the moon play the

17:20

five tones There's

17:28

five notes, and we can

17:30

actually shorten it to just

17:32

the first three notes, and

17:34

it resolves. If you

17:36

think of NBC, the theme, you

17:38

know, the little three -note tune to

17:40

NBC, you can have three notes

17:42

that resolve, but by adding those

17:44

two other notes that are diatonic

17:47

there within the key, and then

17:49

ending on the dominant, it creates

17:51

a completely different Sound.

17:53

You are left in suspense. What comes

17:55

next? Maybe not scary. I don't know

17:57

what, but something comes next. Yeah,

17:59

and this is, like you said,

18:01

John, this is a characteristic of Williams'

18:03

style. He's very simple musical gestures, and

18:06

yet somehow he has this

18:08

genius that's able to... identify a

18:10

way of making that this

18:13

unforgettable sound. 1977, of

18:15

course, the fall of 77 is close

18:17

encounters. In the summer of that same

18:19

year, you have Star Wars. And

18:21

a lot of that music too, you

18:23

know, the main theme is basically just

18:25

a triad with some stepwise motion in

18:27

it. Very, very simple melodies. The

18:30

rhythms are not necessarily very

18:32

complicated. The melodic material is in

18:34

filled with weird, chromatic jumps.

18:36

We talked about Shostakovich recently, who's

18:38

the... have these strange intervals

18:40

and things that you don't expect.

18:43

And that's what keeps that music exciting. What

18:45

makes Williams' music exciting is how he's

18:47

able to take things that are so familiar

18:49

and straightforward and yet somehow turn them

18:51

into something that you can't get out of

18:53

your head. And it's just right for

18:55

what he's trying to express, the

18:57

emotion that he's trying to capture and

18:59

how it fits with the scene or the

19:01

character. And it just

19:03

has this extraordinary gift to create

19:06

that. extraordinarily

19:08

irresistibly compelling musical gesture over

19:10

and over again. What

19:12

John Williams also does he can

19:14

take these things to their to their

19:16

nth degree. I mean this

19:18

moment it turns into like a two

19:20

-minute long tuba and oboe duet. I

19:22

mean if I was directing a movie

19:24

the aliens come down here's where they

19:27

land we're all at this um You

19:29

know airstrip or whatever and there's

19:31

these huge lights everywhere the aliens

19:33

are coming down What are we

19:35

gonna do for the music? I

19:37

was thinking a two -minute tuba

19:39

and oboe duet Well once again

19:41

like are you joking but Williams

19:44

knows what he's doing and it

19:46

really works Yeah, I would just

19:48

I would just tell some you

19:50

don't bring him back here Where'd

19:52

you find this guy? I mean,

19:54

but he does it and it's

19:56

just It's just right.

19:58

It's just right. So I grew

20:00

up with these movies like in

20:02

the 90s and 2000s and as

20:04

you did as well it shaped

20:07

what we thought a movie or

20:09

a film score even was. Yeah,

20:11

I don't think it's completely absurd

20:13

to splice the history of film

20:15

music into BW and AW before

20:17

Williams and after Williams. You

20:19

know whether you love John Williams's

20:21

music or don't Care for it, do

20:23

what you like. You as a

20:26

film composer, Williams cannot be ignored. No.

20:28

He is too consequential on so

20:30

many levels. The other

20:32

thing that sets him apart from

20:34

other film composers is his use

20:36

of light motif. A light motif,

20:38

it's when you have a theme

20:40

that represents an idea, a person,

20:42

a place, kind of anything, and

20:44

it can be very short. a

20:47

couple of intervals or something, but

20:49

this reoccurs in the movie as its

20:52

representation, and it can also evolve

20:54

and change. Sometimes it's in a fragment,

20:56

sometimes it's in the background, sometimes

20:58

it's foreshadowing. He was not

21:00

the first to do this in movies,

21:02

but how he did it in

21:04

Star Wars and how he continued it

21:06

through this series is, I mean,

21:08

really like none other. I mean, just

21:10

hearing now Leia's theme, it's a

21:12

familiar sound that we know. There

21:18

is a document that will link

21:20

on the show notes page that is

21:22

a complete catalog and breakdown of

21:24

the Star Wars light motifs It's over

21:26

a hundred pages long. I mean

21:28

it's like a full -on dissertation.

21:31

Well, it gives you a sense.

21:33

You know, I was talking earlier about

21:35

John Williams is really skilled at

21:37

taking simple musical material and making it

21:39

very effective. But that doesn't mean

21:41

his music is simple. There's actually a

21:43

lot of sophistication. And on

21:46

an intellectual level, this is actually

21:48

a really thoughtful composer. So

21:50

an example of this Leitmotif

21:52

idea is, well, you hear

21:54

now the Imperial March, also

21:56

known as Darth Vader's theme.

21:59

But in the prequel, the

22:02

Phantom Menace, which just, you know, came

22:04

out later, but Anakin's theme, when he's a

22:06

young child, you can actually hear part

22:08

of the Darth Vader theme within that, you

22:10

know, well before any of that stuff

22:12

happens. And

22:16

he does it in, you know,

22:18

sometimes very obvious ways, like we hear

22:21

there, sometimes less obvious ways, but

22:23

I never find that he's trying to

22:25

really obscure it to be super

22:27

secretive like, you know, the thousands of

22:29

instances in Wagner for example. Yeah,

22:31

so a lot's been said about Wagner

22:33

and John Williams. I don't think

22:35

I have anything particularly sophisticated to add

22:38

to it. I will say on

22:40

a personal level, 1983 was the year

22:42

Return of the Jedi was first

22:44

released in movie theaters. That

22:46

same year, public television

22:48

stations all over the United

22:50

States were broadcasting a

22:52

film of the 1980 video

22:54

shoot of the Jahrhundert

22:57

Ring, the 100th anniversary of

22:59

the Ricard Wagner's Ring

23:01

Cycle at Bayreuth. between 1976

23:03

and 1980. Patrice Chirot

23:05

directed, Pierre Boulez was the

23:07

conductor, very controversial at the time.

23:09

It was a big deal.

23:11

And I watched this on my

23:13

local PBS television station in

23:16

1983. Thank you, WNET Channel 13.

23:19

I'm a kid. I'm

23:21

just finishing middle school at that

23:23

point. I'm watching Wagner on TV, and

23:25

then I go to the movies. I

23:27

love Star Wars. I go to see

23:29

Return of the Jedi with my friend. And

23:31

I kid you not, John. I'm sitting

23:33

there in the movie theater, and I'm watching

23:35

this movie for the first time, just,

23:38

you know, up to my eyebrows and learning

23:40

about Wagner. I'm very excited about the

23:42

ring cycle. Sure enough, I hear the Imperial

23:44

March, and I say to myself, hey,

23:46

wait a minute. This is like a leitmotif,

23:48

like Wagner does in the rings. Oh,

23:50

you know, wow. My brain, you know, my

23:52

mind is blown. So yes,

23:54

even at that age, I was

23:56

a music nerd and fiercely proud

23:58

of it. But even as a

24:00

teenager, I could appreciate the, on

24:02

the cusp of adolescence, I could

24:04

appreciate the sophistication and the effectiveness

24:06

with which John Williams uses these

24:09

light motifs to express these ideas

24:11

and characters in these films and

24:13

how there's so much a part

24:15

of a really powerful art of

24:17

dramatic storytelling. So

24:19

then the question becomes, well, how

24:21

do you... all this together. How

24:23

does John Williams put a score

24:26

together for a film? How does

24:28

that happen? Now in that document

24:30

that we will link about the light

24:32

motifs, it's just fun to look at. It

24:34

was done by a music scholar, Frank

24:36

Laman actually, and he also

24:38

included some things he found on

24:40

cue sheets, not something you usually

24:42

ever see outside of a studio. And

24:45

on the cue sheet, he has

24:47

listed who orchestrated which parts of

24:49

the music or those specific points.

24:52

And you might think, well, wait,

24:54

didn't John Williams write the music?

24:56

Yes, he did write the music.

24:58

But in film, you often have

25:00

assistants and especially orchestrators. Now, John

25:02

Williams, he's writing all the themes.

25:04

He's writing the instruments that are

25:06

supposed to be used for solos.

25:08

He's not writing really just a

25:11

skeleton score of maybe two lines,

25:13

a theme, and then

25:15

accompanying line to then extrapolate

25:17

on. But rather, he's writing

25:19

in six to 12 staves, you know,

25:21

six to 12 parts of the

25:23

music. Now, I had actually thought that

25:25

Evan, this meant he got about 80 % of

25:27

the work done. Like he roughed it in, he,

25:29

as we would call it, roughing it

25:31

in, and then an orchestrator would come

25:33

in and finish it. But apparently that's

25:35

not exactly the case with John Williams.

25:37

There was an interview with Conrad Pope,

25:39

one of his orchestrators, and

25:42

he called working with Williams a

25:44

2 % job. because Williams already did

25:46

98 % of the work, and

25:48

he was more like a copyist

25:50

who was just occasionally writing in

25:52

a dynamic or an articulation. And

25:55

from what I hear, John Williams is one of

25:57

the last of his kind in this way. There

25:59

are a lot of film composers who have a

26:01

lot of people doing a lot of heavy lifting.

26:05

And a way that John Williams wasn't doing.

26:07

Yeah, it's really much more of a

26:09

team effort in terms of film music nowadays.

26:11

And yeah, John Williams, I think, was

26:13

this last of his kind kind of an

26:15

idea. I've read that also.

26:18

And the idea that he would just do

26:20

all the work himself pretty much is,

26:22

I think, you know, you might say dying

26:24

breed or whatever. But how

26:26

he would actually jump into the films, I

26:28

read that he said, you know, I

26:30

have no idea what I'm doing. I

26:33

sit at the piano, maybe more than

26:35

my professor would want me to, and

26:37

I'm just improvising, noodling around, messing around,

26:39

and then slowly something kind of coalesces

26:41

after a week or two. And then

26:43

he's on that journey to create a

26:45

98 % score for one of his

26:47

orchestrators. There's no question orchestration is key

26:50

with Williams. We've talked about

26:52

melodic things and the harmonic language

26:54

he uses. generally pretty straightforward, not

26:56

exactly the most adventurous in a lot

26:58

of the films, but very, very effective.

27:01

But it's unsurprising that we would

27:03

learn this about John Williams,

27:05

that he's very meticulous about the

27:07

instrumentation of his music and

27:09

not just melodic and harmonic aspects

27:11

of it. You think about

27:13

the trumpet theme, the

27:15

main theme in Raiders of the Lost

27:17

Ark, that we talked about

27:19

the force in Star Wars. It's very

27:21

often a solo horn. You

27:25

know, these are core elements

27:27

of Williams' style, how the instrumentation

27:29

expresses the musical ideas. And

27:31

he can be quite imaginative with

27:33

instrumentation. We were talking about

27:35

the piccolo tuba duet in Close

27:37

Encounters. The oboe, yes. Oh,

27:40

yeah. You know, there's very unusual

27:42

things that he's quite capable

27:44

of doing. He'd be very creative

27:46

with that. But many times

27:48

his most effective strokes are actually

27:50

fairly simple and you might

27:52

say traditional. contrast that

27:54

with our conversation. Season

27:56

five, we talked about Autorina Raspighi

27:59

and the Pines of Rome, and

28:01

he's evoking this ancient Roman, you

28:03

know, marching on the Appian Way,

28:05

and he has these Buccine, the

28:07

Buccina is this Roman instrument that,

28:09

you know, we have to use

28:11

the flugelhorn, like these strange instruments

28:13

that come into that orchestration. Obviously,

28:16

Raspighi a great orchestrator, but

28:18

Williams is also, and I

28:20

think he's maybe less anxious

28:22

about innovation. and having this

28:25

cutting -edge attitude toward orchestration

28:27

compared to somebody like Rispiggy,

28:29

but both Rispiggy and Williams. are

28:32

composers who really know orchestral color,

28:34

they really know how to get just

28:36

the right sound out of the

28:38

ensemble. I talked about the Imperial March.

28:41

You know, you have these trumpets and

28:43

trombones blaring out this theme, that

28:45

the percussion is doing things that you

28:47

would expect in March music. It's

28:49

not vastly different from a John Philip

28:51

Sousa march, for example. Is

28:54

this innovation? Is this, you know,

28:56

the most wild, adventurous, creative thing

28:58

in terms of it being novel?

29:00

No, perhaps not. But... But,

29:02

you know, heavy brass for the

29:04

bad guy's music in a movie maybe

29:06

is maybe not the most daring

29:08

stroke of originality. What it is about

29:10

Williams, it never seems

29:13

trite. It never seems heavy

29:15

handed. It never seems dull.

29:17

He knows how to write

29:19

well for instruments. He knows

29:21

how to create straightforward melodic

29:23

material expressed in effective but

29:25

often unsurprising harmonic language, conveying

29:27

ideas and feelings with clarity.

29:29

and power and I can't

29:32

help but feel that Williams

29:34

rejects the idea that something

29:36

has to be entirely unprecedented

29:38

artistically in order to be

29:40

interesting. I love

29:42

that Evan as you were describing that.

29:44

It reminded me of crayons. I

29:47

mean, you imagine, you know, I got to

29:49

make a beautiful piece of artwork on a

29:51

canvas or something like that. I need to

29:53

do it with crayons. I want a 150

29:55

pack of crayons with every single color I

29:57

can imagine. And then John Williams

29:59

is also there, and he needs to

30:01

make something as well. And he picks

30:03

up, you know, a four pack of

30:05

crayons, four colors. The primary colors and

30:07

does something really straightforward, but really exciting.

30:09

But then he turns to you and

30:11

says, oh, did you need this color

30:13

too? I only need three

30:15

actually. Because there's a

30:17

great quote from a Norwegian composer,

30:19

Marcus Paus, who said that

30:21

Williams has a satisfying way of

30:24

embodying dissonance and avant -garde techniques

30:26

within a larger tonal framework. I

30:28

read that to mean that he's

30:30

able to do things that feelings

30:32

maybe seem avant -garde, but it

30:35

is just within a

30:37

specific tonal and structural framework that

30:39

we know when he calls them. This

30:41

makes him one of the greatest

30:43

composers of the century. I

30:55

am a big believer, Evan, in

30:57

just doing something and just... doing it.

30:59

And if you can do it

31:01

with someone else along the way, that's

31:03

even better. Because when you can

31:05

just do something and improve 0 .3 %

31:08

a day, that adds up over

31:10

time. And I think that's what we

31:12

find with Williams and Spielberg. This

31:14

partnership comes together in a way that

31:16

you can't just do otherwise, I

31:18

think. and it creates incredible things in

31:20

the music and then in the

31:22

movie. So if we take the end

31:25

of E .T., the final 8 to

31:27

10 minutes is filled with music

31:29

that has to match the screen. And

31:32

John Williams said that there's tons of

31:34

cuts. There's like nearly every second there

31:36

is a cut on screen and there's

31:38

something in the music that has to

31:40

match with it. And over 8 to

31:42

10 minutes is just kind of impossible.

31:44

They were struggling. And then Spielberg told

31:46

them, you know, turn off. Turn off

31:48

the video. Forget about the movie. Record

31:50

the music. You wrote what we need.

31:52

We will edit the movie to the

31:54

music, the final huge scene of it.

31:56

And I watched it yesterday. Oh my

31:58

gosh. Yeah. I love it. Yeah. Yeah.

32:00

But that's an unusual stroke. Yeah. For

32:02

a film director to say, we're going

32:04

to edit the film to the music

32:06

rather than the other way around. Yeah.

32:09

But that's something that you can get when

32:11

you have this partnership, like

32:13

we told him with JAWS. No, that's the

32:15

wrong style that you're thinking of. Maybe

32:18

it should be this. Taking the level of

32:20

trust between these two geniuses for Spielberg

32:22

to be able to just say, you know,

32:24

go ahead and make your music. I

32:26

will adjust to you. You

32:28

know, neither of these guys is maybe

32:30

known for the... Well, I think Williams maybe

32:32

has a certain humility. Spielberg

32:34

perhaps less so, and I don't say that

32:36

as a criticism or an insult, but

32:38

to just put his own ego aside and

32:40

say, I'm going to trust your creativity

32:43

and follow your lead. That's quite

32:45

remarkable. And as you said, John, you

32:47

watch that scene, it's just extraordinarily effective.

32:50

And I mean, I imagine Spielberg, you know,

32:52

the studio, they have... but it is

32:54

still extremely expensive to record, you know, just

32:56

record those 10 minutes and then go

32:58

and try to figure it out. And then

33:00

if you have to go back, that

33:02

is a huge, huge expense. So

33:05

we're going to get into some of

33:07

his non -film music here in just

33:09

a moment, but maybe Evan, there is

33:11

a movie that you saw. that you

33:13

didn't know John Williams wrote the music

33:15

for. Well, you mentioned Catch Me If

33:17

You Can, which I remember I was

33:19

not aware as I'm watching the film,

33:21

or maybe I forgot that this is

33:23

one of his many film scores. It's

33:25

one of the, not neglected, but it's

33:28

one of the underplayed. Yeah, yeah, it's

33:30

not the first thing people think of

33:32

when they think of a John Williams

33:34

film score. So that's

33:36

escaped my attention as I was watching

33:38

the film years ago. I

33:40

was aware, however, that he was the

33:42

composer for Lincoln, which is about

33:44

10 years later, 2012. And

33:46

yeah, that's another characteristic Williams score.

33:49

And again, he's able to... tap

33:51

into that vein of the heroic,

33:53

the larger than life, the grandeur,

33:55

and there's something very American about

33:57

sound. I don't even know what

33:59

I mean by that, and yet

34:01

I feel it more than I

34:03

think it. For

34:10

me, the movie that I did not

34:12

know he had written the music for was...

34:14

Poseidon or I called it Poseidon. I

34:16

now know what's the Poseidon adventure and

34:18

actually when I was a kid I

34:20

didn't know what it was called I

34:22

all I knew was there was this

34:24

movie that would come on the TV

34:26

and It was terrifying with this cruise

34:28

ship flipping upside down. I mean I

34:30

was traumatized, but I could not look

34:32

away I had no idea Williams wrote

34:34

the music for that until the other

34:36

day Well, you know you talk about

34:38

growing up with John Williams. We've both

34:40

been Attesting to this as so many

34:42

people can and as I said I

34:44

was on the cusp between childhood and

34:46

adolescence when Raiders of the Lost Ark

34:48

came out in 1981 lot going on

34:50

in the world at that time I'm

34:52

just at that age where I'm starting

34:54

to really understand. There's a world outside

34:56

of my own Imagination. I'm just starting

34:58

to pay attention You know you think

35:00

about the late 70s the Camp David

35:03

Accords and the hostage crisis in Iran

35:05

and You know, I was aware of

35:07

these things. And then in the early

35:09

80s, you look at what's going on

35:11

in Poland with the Solidarity Movement and

35:13

Lech Walesa and these people who are

35:15

changing the world. And you may

35:17

wonder, well, what's this got to

35:19

do with John Williams? Well, I'm seeing

35:21

these exciting things happening in the

35:23

world, the struggle and people yearning for

35:25

freedom and trying to change the

35:27

world. And I'm also hearing this music

35:29

in my head that I've seen,

35:31

you know, Harrison Ford cavorting around on

35:33

the screen. it is playing that

35:35

very familiar tune, and there's a sense

35:37

of adventure. There's that sense of

35:39

struggle. There's a sense of the heroic.

35:42

In my mind, the music of

35:44

John Williams is kind of

35:47

a soundtrack to that period of

35:49

history. Those themes of courage

35:51

and daring and exploration and fearlessness

35:53

in the face of danger

35:55

and death, whether it's Indiana Jones

35:58

trying to run out of

36:00

the cave before the traps get

36:02

him, or these Polish dock

36:04

workers. demanding more rights. And

36:07

that's got blended in my mind, a

36:09

sense of the heroic struggle of life.

36:11

And John Williams' music is a part of

36:13

that, a sense of my worldview is forming

36:16

at the beginning of adolescence. I

36:18

think so many of those film

36:20

scores of John Williams are so

36:22

well -crafted. A lot

36:24

of these movies would have

36:26

been really terrific with some other

36:28

composer, I'm sure. But can

36:31

you imagine Star Wars without... I

36:33

don't know. It would probably be selling like heartbeaps.

36:35

Yeah. I mean, some other

36:38

very gifted composer could have done

36:40

something. But, you know, many years

36:42

after that, those films came out, I

36:44

played a video game that was based

36:46

on the Star Wars story. And

36:48

it had all of the John Williams music with

36:50

the London Symphony, all that, all those that soundtrack

36:52

that I grew up with. It's a really fun

36:54

game. I'm not a big video gamer, but I

36:56

play a little bit. And but

36:58

the music. really was so

37:00

much a part of the experience and

37:02

a lot of video games you

37:05

can turn off the music and I

37:07

tried that once wow totally different

37:09

experience boring like the music like made

37:11

the experience much more exciting and

37:13

that gave me a whole new appreciation

37:15

for Williams John, you

37:17

and I had a conversation last

37:19

season about Corn Gold. Eric Wolfgang Corn

37:21

Gold, another composer, composed a lot

37:23

for film in an earlier era. And

37:26

as long as that medium, the medium

37:28

of cinema has been in existence, there

37:31

have been endless discussions and questions about

37:33

things like whether or not film music

37:35

is art or if it's high art

37:37

or if it's not and why, even

37:39

in the silent film era, before films

37:41

had sound. you'd have live

37:43

musicians very often in a movie

37:45

theater accompanying the film. And even

37:47

those musicians often had to fight

37:50

for respect. Were they really good

37:52

musicians or were they just seen

37:54

as, oh, they're just music hall,

37:56

you know, they're just a bunch

37:58

of hacks. So here I am

38:00

talking about video games, which is

38:02

also a huge opportunity for composers

38:04

nowadays, very lucrative for a

38:06

lot of composers. And your music heard

38:08

that way. But again, there's this question,

38:10

is that really art. And there are

38:13

bound to be those who want to

38:15

draw a line between real music of

38:17

the concert hall and, you know, the

38:19

other things like film and video games

38:21

don't count as real music. And I

38:23

don't find those distinctions very helpful. I

38:25

think Williams writes film music in a

38:27

way that's timeless, but in another way,

38:29

it's kind of old fashioned. And

38:32

I don't say that disparagingly. I'm not

38:34

really interested in labels like neo -romantic

38:36

or whatever. I guess you could make

38:38

a case for something like that. But

38:40

many of the films that are most

38:42

successful, John Williams, also

38:45

I think quite intentionally have

38:47

that sort of old fashioned

38:49

quality. The Star Wars, Indiana

38:51

Jones, very intentionally drawing on earlier eras

38:53

as films. There's a kind of old

38:55

fashioned quality that they have, and I

38:57

think very deliberately it's part of what

38:59

makes them fun. And I

39:01

have to believe that the choice

39:04

of John Williams as the composer for

39:06

those films is part of that

39:08

intention to sort of evoke this earlier

39:10

era of the movie, the movie

39:12

short, the movie reel, the serials of

39:14

the 1940s and so forth that

39:16

are part of that sort of cultural

39:18

milieu. But at the

39:20

same time, I think John Williams'

39:23

music is never stodgy. It

39:25

doesn't sound old fashioned in a

39:27

pejorative way. It always seems

39:29

fresh and engaging. Yeah. and

39:31

we're going to get into his

39:33

non -film music right after this. Classical

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Breakdown, your guide to classical

39:41

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39:50

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39:58

all that and more

40:00

at wetaclassical .org. So

40:04

one of the kinds of music

40:06

that John Williams has composed, the

40:08

most besides film music, are concertos.

40:11

He's written a concerto for nearly

40:13

every instrument of the orchestra, I

40:15

think. I mean, pretty much

40:17

all of them. And he said

40:19

that he would approach these concertos as

40:21

a time to discover a sense

40:23

of renewal or get away from an

40:25

assignment. He's recording two to four

40:27

film scores or more a year. He's

40:29

in the studio all day, every

40:31

day. So this was kind of his

40:33

escape from that. And he's also

40:35

very humble about them. I

40:38

think he said Dvorak's cello

40:40

concerto, you know, mind is not

40:42

going to usurp his anytime

40:44

soon. But he's written some incredible

40:46

ones. His tuba concerto is

40:48

fantastic. One of my favorites. It

40:50

is just one the most exciting

40:53

to play to listen to. And he

40:55

did more for the tuba. than

40:57

anyone. There's the concerto, the close encounter

40:59

solos, the job of the hud

41:01

tuba solo that happens in all of

41:03

his music, but his concertos are

41:05

really one to listen to. Once

41:15

specifically Evan that I think is

41:17

one of his most extraordinary is his

41:19

most recent the 2021 work His

41:21

violin chaired out number two that he

41:23

wrote for Anna Sophie mooter and

41:25

the the Boston Symphony Orchestra This feels

41:28

like he is almost more himself

41:30

in the music as if he did

41:32

not write film music I mean,

41:34

I was really taken by this piece.

41:36

Yeah, it's a really fine piece

41:38

I hadn't really been aware of it

41:40

until you and I started this

41:42

conversation John. Yeah, it's it's a really

41:44

it's a very exciting and interesting

41:46

concerto. And it opens with a

41:48

prologue and it has an epilogue with

41:50

two movements in between and I've seen in

41:53

some of his other concertos and non -film

41:55

works there's like a prologue written in

41:57

as well. I kind of think you know

41:59

something movie -esque or I'm reading into it

42:01

when I see you know. prologue, epilogue,

42:03

added like that. But I love the opening

42:05

movements, improvisatory feeling here. The

42:07

cadenza section is just

42:10

wonderful. The third

42:12

movement, dactyls, is one I really,

42:14

really like because I love it

42:16

when composers use grammar or things

42:18

in literature. So a dactyl in

42:20

poetry is when you have a

42:22

long stressed symbol followed by two

42:24

unstressed syllables, so like the word

42:26

bicycle. So I find it

42:28

interesting when composers use things like this

42:30

to turn groups of notes that might

42:32

be a melody or motif into more

42:34

of a single gesture. It's

42:36

not bicycle, that's something else. It's

42:38

bicycle. Yeah, this is

42:40

a concerto he wrote for Anna Zofi

42:43

Motor. As you said, this was

42:45

2021 was the year it was

42:47

first performed. The two of them

42:49

had collaborated before. He wrote

42:51

his piece Markings for Anna

42:53

Zofi Motor in 2017. It's a

42:55

work for solo violin and

42:57

string orchestra and harp. The

42:59

violin concerto number two is definitely

43:01

quite different stylistically in many ways from

43:03

his more familiar film scores, as

43:06

we were saying. Here's

43:08

a quote from Williams about this

43:10

concerto. He said, I can

43:12

only think of this piece as being

43:14

about Anazofi Mutter, with so

43:16

much great music already written for

43:18

the instrument, much of it recently

43:20

for Anazofi. I wondered what further

43:22

contribution I could possibly make, but

43:24

I took my inspiration and energy

43:26

directly from this great artist herself.

43:28

So he's really writing it for

43:30

her. I mean, she is, of

43:33

course, this global phenomenon as well.

43:35

She should be incredibly... violinist and

43:37

there I think neither of them

43:39

is new to the world of

43:41

music but he's really writing it

43:43

with her style in mind it's

43:45

really her piece and you listen

43:47

to her performing it you really

43:49

get that sense you mentioned dactyls

43:51

the third movement so there is

43:53

that kind of poetic grandeur about

43:55

it and you know the sense

43:57

that yes it's not film music

43:59

it's very different from his film

44:02

music but even in this absolute

44:04

music there's no program there's no

44:06

symphonic poem going on here. It's

44:08

a concerto and yet even there

44:10

there's a sense of narrative. This

44:12

is a composer who is a storyteller.

44:15

and it has me thinking about

44:17

his old teacher Castel Novo Tedesco

44:19

and his love of literature and

44:21

poetry and While this doesn't sound

44:23

a lot like the film music

44:25

of Williams. It's more familiar to

44:27

us. It's definitely that dramatic flair

44:29

There's this cadenza like passage for

44:31

the solo violin with lots of

44:33

double stops and other technical prior

44:35

techniques Toward the end of that

44:37

movement and there's an almost an

44:39

operatic quality about it. It's like

44:41

this dramatic monologue kind of experience And

44:49

I find the fourth and last

44:51

movement, especially moving, there's this kind

44:53

of Maloresque ending, which maybe it's

44:55

a feeling of resignation or maybe

44:57

a feeling of acceptance. Reminded

44:59

me a little bit of the ending of Das Lied von

45:01

der Erde. There are so

45:04

many things you find in his

45:06

music. Reminds me of, yeah, when we

45:08

talked about corn gold, you'll hear,

45:10

you know, very sudden instances of, you

45:12

know, is this a reference, a

45:14

quote, a homage, or something else. And...

45:18

what do we do with these concertos? And

45:20

what I recommend, you know, as an assignment,

45:22

a homework assignment, if you will, is take

45:24

your favorite instrument in the orchestra, the instrument

45:26

you love that you would take with you

45:28

to a desert island. Go

45:30

and listen to John Williams' concerto for that

45:32

instrument. Now think of an instrument that

45:34

you don't like, maybe one you hate.

45:36

I hate to use that word, but maybe

45:39

think of one you don't like. and

45:41

go and see if John Williams wrote

45:43

a concerto for it. He probably did in

45:45

the orchestra. And listen to that

45:47

one, because I want people to hear something

45:49

they really like and hear what John Williams

45:51

does with it, but also something they think

45:53

they don't like. And, you know,

45:56

maybe John Williams will change their mind

45:58

or at least show them the instrument is

46:00

probably different than what they had thought

46:02

it was before. And

46:04

unfortunately, Evan, we

46:06

get an example here that is...

46:08

more unfortunate for us and those

46:10

listening because John Williams wrote a

46:12

symphony. He actually wrote a symphony.

46:14

There's a score to it. We've

46:16

never seen it. It's unpublished. It's

46:19

not been recorded. So it almost

46:21

feels like now it's our turn

46:23

to never hear a work written

46:25

during our time by a great

46:27

composer only for someone else to

46:29

find it a hundred, 200 years

46:31

in the future. So maybe they're

46:33

enjoying it right now. But for

46:35

us, We don't

46:37

get it. Yeah, and I think

46:39

he composed that work maybe in the

46:42

1960s Yeah, I'd love to hear

46:44

it, but yeah, somebody's got to dig

46:46

that score out and perform it

46:48

and maybe record it I think we

46:50

may be long gone Unfortunately when

46:52

that when that happens, but we can

46:54

compare the sound of his second

46:56

violin concerto for example, too I think

46:58

the composer we mentioned earlier Edgar

47:01

Verrez who lived from 1883 to 1965

47:03

and taught a lot in the

47:05

U .S. His piece, America, if I

47:07

can say that right, I hear some

47:09

similarities within this and to Varese,

47:11

which is a composer I had not

47:13

heard him mention before, but now

47:15

we can talk about maybe some of

47:17

the composers that have influenced John

47:19

Williams, because there's a funny thing now

47:22

where enough time has passed where

47:24

it works in the opposite direction, because

47:26

I heard him grew up with

47:28

John Williams way before I knew Corn

47:30

Gold and Wagner way before. So

47:32

when I heard Corn Gold for the

47:34

first time, it's like, oh, he

47:36

sounds like John Williams. Why

47:38

is he copying John Williams? You know, not

47:40

knowing, you know, that guy died, you know, a long time ago. But

47:43

it's funny to see it work in that

47:45

way. But when we

47:48

examine it, there is that Wagner

47:50

connection that you mentioned. It's

47:52

easy. maybe overdone at times.

47:54

I think both composers had that

47:56

unique rare opportunity to create

47:58

those light motifs and content that

48:00

spans 15 hours. I mean,

48:02

that's not a usual thing a

48:04

composer gets to do, right?

48:06

Yeah. Also, Holst. The

48:09

Planets is one people here with

48:11

Mars and some of the

48:13

moments in his music. I actually,

48:15

listening to it again, I

48:17

thought there's some voice harmonies, vocal

48:19

harmonies at the end of

48:21

Neptune. that come close to

48:23

moments in close encounters and that's something I

48:25

had not really heard before. I

48:39

also wonder about just a general English influence

48:41

on John Williams. I'm not sure about it,

48:43

but you mentioned Holst. I think Ray Fawn

48:45

Williams might be another one, and one of

48:48

the reasons I say that is I was

48:50

driving my car once years ago, and my

48:52

kids were young. They were sitting in the

48:54

backseat, and I had music on. I was

48:56

listening to one of the symphonies of Ray

48:58

Fawn Williams. I don't remember which one.

49:00

And one of my kids, who was a

49:02

Star Wars fan, spoke up and said, hey

49:05

dad, this sounds like... And he made some

49:07

comparison to John Williams. And I'm listening to

49:09

this Vaughan Williams symphony that I know well,

49:11

and I'm thinking, gosh, I never noticed.

49:13

But yeah, he's right. And I

49:15

said to him, well, you know, John

49:17

Williams is a very skilled... composer and

49:19

musician and I'm sure he knows the

49:21

music of this earlier composer Ray Fawn

49:23

Williams. So I don't know where the

49:26

influences are exactly, but I think that

49:28

John Williams has had a thorough education

49:30

and a very keen ear and is

49:32

quite knowledgeable and you hear that in

49:34

his music. He is extremely,

49:36

extremely knowledgeable. It's clear that he

49:38

has read, listened to and studied.

49:40

all of these composers in the

49:42

20th century and the century,

49:45

also into the 18th century, I'm

49:47

sure. And it

49:49

also speaks to the aspect

49:51

of this is, it's a

49:53

job. It's almost like a trade. No,

49:56

technically, I went to a trade school.

49:58

That's how it was designated, music conservatory

50:00

trade school. And

50:02

so for John Williams, he has to

50:04

pump out the music, whether... wants to

50:06

or not meaning like whether you were

50:08

in divinely inspired or not. No, you

50:10

just, you have to write. Yeah, he

50:12

works hard. He does not have a

50:15

cushy life. And so we can actually

50:17

talk about how he's kind of everywhere

50:19

at once now. He is a fabric

50:21

of our society in all the movies,

50:23

all the stuff that's, you know, the

50:25

news, the Olympics, and so forth. He

50:27

is, you know, a fabric of our

50:29

culture at this point. And...

50:32

is something I also did not

50:34

know it wasn't always this way that

50:36

we knew John Williams his face

50:39

and everything When he joined the Boston

50:41

Pops in 1980 he held that

50:43

conductor job until 1993 one of the

50:45

things he mentioned in a 1983

50:47

NPR interview was that he had rarely

50:49

or maybe never conducted in public

50:51

His entire you know past 25 years

50:54

were every single day in a

50:56

studio Yeah recording the music everyone knew

50:58

and loved and then you could

51:00

just walk out the door Nobody could

51:02

recognize it. No, you could just

51:04

live your life and people didn't didn't

51:06

know there's a that's a huge

51:09

aspect of studio musicians, but Now he's

51:11

got this conducting job and he

51:13

is in the public side and everyone

51:15

loves him, but the musicians aren't

51:18

fully in love with it. A terrible

51:20

thing happened in 1984. Musicians

51:22

started hissing and, you know,

51:25

making noise during a rehearsal of

51:27

one of his newer works. He

51:29

walked out of the rehearsal, told him he

51:31

was going to resign. I

51:34

would too. But then management,

51:36

other people came in and were able

51:38

to smooth it over, get people

51:40

to apologize. I don't know how much

51:42

of that was actually public for

51:44

a while. But there was this point

51:46

to the issue of Film music

51:48

is it high art or is it

51:50

you know, is it some cheap

51:52

kitschy thing for for a movie? Fortunately,

51:55

this is a attitude that has

51:57

changed I think quite a bit in

51:59

the last in the last 10

52:01

years and I think part of the

52:03

evidence of that is John Williams conducting

52:06

and recording with the Berlin Philharmonic

52:08

recently. That's not something I would

52:10

have guessed would have happened. Maybe,

52:12

you know, this distinction between pops

52:14

versus, you know, quote unquote, more

52:16

serious has always been kind of

52:18

artificial. And you look at great

52:21

artists like, you know, John Williams

52:23

is a terrific example. Eric Kunzel

52:25

with the Cincinnati Pops for 30

52:27

odd years is another, you know,

52:29

a great musician, a great orchestra

52:31

playing great music that people love.

52:33

Like if people like something, why

52:35

does that diminish it? I mean,

52:37

yes. Sometimes things are popular because

52:39

they have an evanescence quality and

52:41

they lack depth or whatever, but

52:43

we shouldn't assume that. And certainly

52:45

with a composer and conductor and

52:47

musician like John Williams, we certainly

52:49

should not assume that he lacks

52:51

depth. No, and musicians, I definitely

52:53

see a difference in how people

52:56

think of this music now. There

52:58

will still be some complaints, but a

53:01

lot of that rises out of if

53:03

I can just say for a moment.

53:05

orchestra musicians are severely Overworked and so

53:07

when you have a pops program sometimes

53:09

it's like yeah, I like this music,

53:11

but it's also 25 tunes that I

53:13

need to play you know screaming high

53:15

and loud and I just came off

53:17

of this last week and we've got

53:19

this next week So sometimes there's that

53:22

aspect to it I played with an

53:24

orchestra earlier this season not because the

53:26

tuba player was sick But because they

53:28

had three series happening at once. I

53:30

mean I played like 30 something tunes

53:33

that week just you know just

53:35

playing them While there's three series

53:37

happening at once that everyone else

53:39

is having to also contend with

53:41

as well. So That's to say

53:43

There's been a real change. He's

53:45

recorded with the Berlin Phil. He's

53:47

recorded Yeah, record with the the

53:49

Vienna Philharmonic too and now he

53:51

is just He is part of

53:53

our lives. I mean in 2009

53:55

he wrote music for Obama's inauguration

53:57

so I mean, what's happening

53:59

today, Evan? He's 93 years old, but

54:01

he's still technically not retired. He wrote

54:03

music for the recent Indiana Jones movie,

54:05

and he said, hey, I'm still open

54:07

to projects if they interest me. He

54:09

clearly is willing to work hard. Yeah.

54:11

He's willing to work hard, and I

54:14

think his legacy, it's going to last

54:16

as long as we're listening to music,

54:18

and his legacy will continue on. He's,

54:20

of course, he's going to

54:22

be bequeathing his entire library of

54:24

his concert. music, film scores, sketchbooks, all

54:26

of that to to Juilliard. And

54:28

so I think we might be finding

54:30

and recording things in the future

54:32

that we did not even know about

54:34

right now. I mean, that would

54:37

be very fantastic. OK,

54:39

Evan, so what do we do now?

54:41

What do we do to where do

54:43

we go? What do we listen to

54:45

for his nonfilm music? I personally think

54:47

there's a lot to be enjoyed in

54:49

his concertos. I'll put a playlist on

54:51

the show notes page, but there are

54:53

some other non -film music

54:55

that was also... for a

54:57

particular function like a centennial.

55:00

One of those would be

55:02

American Journey. It was commissioned

55:04

by the federal government in

55:06

1999 and premiered at the Lincoln

55:08

Memorial in 1999 on New

55:10

Year's Eve, quite special for something

55:12

like to happen. Yeah, I

55:14

think President Clinton commissioned that. Yeah,

55:16

I like American Journey a lot. Some

55:18

of it reminds me a little bit of

55:20

Margaret Bonds' Montgomery Variations, maybe a work

55:23

that a lot of our listeners don't know

55:25

deserves to be known. Or Kessler music.

55:27

reflecting on the struggle and promise of our

55:29

country. And here's John Williams,

55:31

who just has such a gift of

55:33

expressing that in such a powerful and

55:35

compelling way. I really like the oboe

55:37

concerto. You talk about, you know, concerto

55:39

for every instrument. He wrote

55:42

an oboe concerto for oboist

55:44

Keisuke Wakau, who was the...

55:46

He played the solo in

55:48

the works 2011 premiere. He

55:50

was the assistant principal oboe

55:52

of the Boston Symphony Orchestra,

55:54

also principal oboe of the Boston... and pops. It's

55:57

a three -movement concerto, so there are

55:59

aspects of that structure very traditional. The

56:02

finale is entitled Commedia, and

56:04

there's definitely a whimsy, a kind

56:06

of theatrical, Commedia dell 'arte,

56:09

kind of humor about it.

56:11

Not program music, as far as

56:13

I know, and yet there's,

56:15

again, there's a theatricality that we

56:17

associate with John Williams, but

56:19

John Williams composes a storyteller. It's

56:26

a composer who is a fabric of

56:28

our lives, basically. Someone who

56:30

is still alive, which means there's

56:32

a lot of aspects of a life

56:34

that has not been studied or

56:36

dug through quite yet. So we'll be

56:38

hearing and finding out things in

56:40

the future, but I mean... I imagine

56:42

we're probably going to get some

56:44

more music from John Williams before all

56:46

of a sudden done. He's not

56:49

done yet, I think. Even at 93,

56:51

I think we said he is.

56:53

He's in his early 90s. He's still

56:55

working hard and has contributed so

56:57

much to our lives. I

56:59

want to conclude with a short

57:01

personal reflection, which is to say

57:03

that I knew a very gifted

57:05

musician many years ago. I

57:08

knew him as a church music director.

57:10

He was also a high school band director.

57:12

And John, you don't need me

57:14

to tell you about the intensity

57:16

of high school marching band. He's

57:18

a really intense, high quality competition

57:20

kind of culture. So this

57:22

musician that I knew was

57:25

part of that world and very,

57:27

very skilled, a lovely human

57:29

being. And he was also passionate,

57:31

really hardcore Star Wars fan. been

57:34

from childhood and what he disclosed

57:36

was that it was John Williams

57:38

that got him interested in music.

57:40

He heard this thrilling orchestral music

57:42

in these movies that he loved

57:44

from childhood and that got him

57:46

interested in music and there have

57:48

got to be countless stories like

57:50

this about how John Williams has

57:52

affected people's lives in this positive

57:54

way. I think to some

57:57

extent it's true for myself and

57:59

has to be true for more people

58:01

we can count. I think the

58:03

whole world owes a great debt to

58:05

this wonderful composer and musician, John

58:07

Williams. It might still be happening

58:09

now, but I know in the last

58:11

10, 15, 20 years, you know, I

58:13

was coming up, if you saw Jurassic

58:15

Park or E .T. down

58:18

on your middle school band music

58:20

stand, you went bananas. You

58:22

went bananas. Well, thank you so

58:24

much, Evan. Thank you, John. Thanks

58:28

for listening to Classical Breakdown,

58:30

your guide to classical music. For

58:32

more information on this episode,

58:34

visit the show notes page at

58:36

ClassicalBreakdown .org. You can send me

58:38

comments and episode ideas to

58:40

ClassicalBreakdown WETA .org. And if you

58:43

enjoyed this episode, leave a review

58:45

in your podcast app. I'm

58:47

John Thanks for listening to

58:49

Classical Breakdown from WETA Classical.