The Case of John Williams
We are on week 2 of June Tunes, and this is a very special episode. We have covered film concepts and individual movies, but today is our first-ever biography episode!
A while back, we did some episodes about movie scores. We talked about prominent composers and themes we think every movie fan should know. But today we are highlighting one person in particular. This man has majorly influenced not just film music, but mainstream American culture for the last 45 years. Even if you don’t know his name, you might know his music. His themes have made you feel inspired, scared, happy, and sad; and they may have even convinced you to believe in magic. We are talking about John Williams.
You can find our playlist for this episode here to brush up on some of the amazing work he has done.
--- https://bit.ly/3d9rkVZ ---
Music is such an important part of any film, even films that left it out completely. It sets the tone for every scene, and adds an extra layer of emotional storytelling. It is so vital that bad film music, or music that does not match the scene, can pull you out of the story completely. Imagine that scene in Jurassic Park when Ellie Sattler, Alan Grant, and Ian Malcolm first see the dinosaurs. Sure it is memorable because of the acting and visuals, but imagine that moment without its iconic theme. Would we still be talking about it now?
Today we are discussing the life and work of John Williams, and the impact he has made on American pop culture.
Family/Young Life
John Williams was born on February 8th 1932 in New York to Johnny and Esther Williams. His father was a Jazz Percussionist, most known for being in the Raymond Scott Quintet on CBS Radio, which led to John growing up around music. He began young by taking piano lessons, but also studied clarinet, trumpet and trombone all before the age of 15. These lessons would be the building blocks to a life filled with the music.
By 16 he was experimenting with his own sound compositions and was the leader of his own Jazz band.
In 1948 he and his family moved to Los Angeles where John began studies in music composition and classical piano at U.C.L.A. At the young age of 19 he composed his first piece, a piano sonata. A sonata is a long piece of classical music meant to be played by a single instrument like a piano or an orchestra.
By 1952 he was drafted into the Air Force for three years where he conducted and arranged pieces for their band. Once he returned from the forces he moved to New York where he attended Julliard School of Music. At Julliard he was taught by Madame Rosina Lhevinne, whom the New York Times in 1975 said was one of the greatest pianist’s of that century. When he graduated he moved back to LA to pursue composing in movies and television. He began as a studio pianist and has grown from there.
His first film credit is for the musical film Carousel, where he was an additional orchestrator.
His first wife was Barabara Ruick, who starred in the film. They were high school acquaintances, and married the same year Carousel released.
Williams got married in 1956 and had three children with his wife Barbara.
One of his sons became a drummer for the band Air Supply, while his other son became the lead singer of the band TOTO! His daughter is a doctor.
One of Williams’ most poignant pieces of work is a violin concerto he wrote for his wife. She encouraged him to write it, but tragically died before he could finish it. It is absolutely beautiful.
Williams remarried Samantha Winslow in 1980, and they are still married today.
Below is the Violin Concerto he composed for Barbara Ruick.
First Projects
John Williams caught a break for his career when he worked alongside famed composer Henry Mancini on the TV show Peter Gunn.
Mancini is known for writing The Pink Panther, Peter Gunn, Moon River, and he even did the soundtrack for The Great Mouse Detective.
The Peter Gunn theme was used in The Blues Brothers, which we talked about last week!
Later on, the two men would work together on Charade and The Days of Wine and Roses.
While he grew as a composer, he worked on films like To Kill a Mockingbird and Some Like it Hot.
Williams became friends with Bernard Herrman, a music giant in the golden age of film.
By age 24, he was orchestrating for Alfred Newman, Dimitri Tiomkin, and Franz Waxman, more huge names for movie music at the time.
Williams moved from orchestrating to composing episodes of major TV shows.
Lost in Space, Gilligan’s Island, and Land of the Giants were just three.
He was able to jump from TV to film for the first time in the late 1960’s, but according to IMDB, he was somewhat typecast as a composer for comedy.
In 1969, Williams scored a film called “The Reivers” based on a novel by William Faulkner and starring Steve McQueen. It was this piece that caught the attention of a young filmmaker named Steven Speilberg, who asked Williams to help with an upcoming film, The Sugarland Express.
In 1971, Williams won his first oscar after adapting the music for Fiddler on the Roof!
Most Influential Pieces of Music
Jaws
In the summer of 1975, the world met its first summer blockbuster, and the first film to make 100 million dollars at the box office.
The Jaws theme is one of the most recognizable pieces of music in film history, a notorious example of Leitmotif, one of Williams’ trademarks as a composer.
The music in Jaws built suspense in such a unique way--the music announced the presence of the film’s main villain with just two notes.
This established Spielberg and Williams as a director/composer team and they would work together often over the next 40 years.
Star Wars
When George Lucas described what he wanted for his Star Wars score, Speilberg suggested John Williams.
Lucas had put together a list of music as a guide, much of it being pieces from the Golden Age of film, something that John Williams knew much about since he was good friends with those past composers.
By the late 70’s and early 80’s, the sweeping orchestral sounds of Bernard Hermann and Erich Korngold weren’t as popular.
Williams was able to pull from multiple influences to build the theme for Star Wars that Lucas wanted, and the sound brought audiences back to the golden age of film, making Williams an incredibly sought-after and popular composer.
He drew from Chopin’s funeral march and Holst’s “The Planets” for Darth Vader’s infamous theme.
It became the best-selling score only soundtrack of all time, which prompted other composers to imitate Williams’ work--influencing film music in a major way.
Superman
After his sweeping success with such greats as Jaws and Star Wars, John Williams continued his success by composing the 1978 Superman.
The first recording session of the film was ruined because the director (Richard Donner) was so excited for how fantastic the theme sounded that he exclaimed, “Genius! Fantastic!”
The Superman theme contains elements of fanfare which indicates before Superman comes, the march which marks his arrival, and finally the love theme at the end of the composition.
ET
John Williams inserted his theme for Yoda in ET for a scene where a child is dressed as the popular character.
This was one of Williams’ 5 oscar wins.
Williams had trouble timing the music in the final chase scene, the most iconic scene in the film. So, Speilberg shut off the projector and told Williams to write the music the way he wanted. Spielberg then edited the movie around the music, something rarely done.
Indiana Jones
When speaking of the Indiana Jones Theme John Williams said, "A piece like that is deceptively simple to try to find the few right notes that will make a right leitmotif identification for a character like Indiana Jones. I remember working on that thing for days, changing notes, changing this, inverting that, trying to get something that seemed to me to be just right. I can't speak for my colleagues but for me things which appear to be very simple are not at all, they're only simple after the fact. The manufacture of these things which seem inevitable is a process that can be laborious and difficult."
Home Alone
John Williams brings us the sounds of Christmas with Home Alone.
While some of the well known jingles are scattered in the soundtrack, he was also able to create an original sound that evokes what goes on during the holiday while in addition sharing the deeper meanings of Christmas.
In order to do this he used a common instrument associated with Christmas as Tchaikovsky used it in “The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies” for The Nutcracker. The instrument is called a celeste and is often associated with the supernatural.
The theme is called “Somewhere in My Memory” and is layered throughout the movie. It is finally played in full at the end of the movie when you and Kevin have finally discovered the true meaning of Christmas.
Hook
The fight scene at the end of Hook was 20 minutes of uninterrupted music, the longest Williams had ever composed for one scene. When the soundtrack was released, they left out portions of this piece and released it years later on a special extended version.
Williams wrote the music and lyrics to the two songs in the film: “We Don’t Wanna Grow Up”, and “When You’re Alone”
For Tinker Bell’s theme, Williams used the celesta, making it reminiscent of the Sugarplum fairy.
The Nutcracker is the first published piece of music to use the Celesta.
Jurassic Park
Williams began writing the Jurassic Park score at the end of February 1993, and it was conducted a month later.
The score is described by Williams as, "a rugged, noisy effort - a massive job of symphonic cartooning." He also said that, while trying to, "match the rhythmic gyrations of the dinosaurs," he ended up creating, "these kind of funny ballets".
For the first time, Spielberg was unable to attend the recording sessions for one of his movies, as he was in Poland filming Schindler's List. Instead, Williams gave him demo tapes with piano versions of the main themes prior to his travel, and the director would listen to them daily on the way to the sets.
Schindler’s List
One of his five oscars as well as other awards including:
BAFTA Award for Best Film Music
Grammy Award for Best Score Soundtrack in Visual Media
The work is different from his other film scores in that, although complementing the action and emotion of the film, it is somehow separate. It does not closely follow each scene's action, but tells a story through many themes that each represent a different idea or person.
The main theme, simply called "Theme from Schindler's List," written specifically for violinist Itzhak Perlman, accompanied by orchestra, is a haunting yet simple melody. It expands to incorporate some rhythmic and harmonic idioms of Eastern European Jewish music.
Harry Potter (First three films)
Williams scores the first three films of the franchise, laying a foundation for all the music to come. His style is very classic and it is always reflected in the music. The first three films live in a much happier, more playful spirit as opposed to the later movies.
The dominant theme that most of us identify with and is used in all of the Harry Potter films, “Hedwig's Theme", doesn't always specifically represent Hedwig, but rather the wider idea of magic and the Wizarding World.
When he was presented with composing the first score he did it in Los Angeles and Tanglewood but then recorded the soundtrack in London in 2001.
In the 1990s, Williams intended to retire, but continued to create groundbreaking music. By the time the third Harry Potter film came out, he decided it was time to take a break from film composing. Steven Spielberg pulled him back out for films such as “War Horse,” “The Adventures of TinTin,” and “Lincoln.” He is 88 years old, and still composing today.
Contributions to American Culture That You May Not Know
Boston Pops Orchestra
In Massachusetts there is The Boston Symphony Orchestra. This orchestra performs long classical symphonies in a formal setting. The Boston Pops contains some of these same musicians, but they perform light, classical and popular music. Often they are outside so the whole family can have a picnic and enjoy great music together. It encourages everyone to take an interest in classical music.
John was their 2nd Conductor from 1980-1993
Olympic Compositions
In 1984 the Los Angeles Olympic games had the official theme "Olympic Fanfare and Theme" composed by John Williams.
He has also composed “Olympic Spirit,” “Summon the Heroes,” and on his birthday in the Winter of 2002 he conducted his piece “Call of the Champions”.
Mission Theme for NBC
Awards
John holds about 21 Honorary Degrees from accredited Universities such as Harvard, Berklee, and Julliard.
He has received the AFI Lifetime Achievement Award, American Academy of Arts and Sciences Fellow, Kennedy Center Honor, National Medal of Arts(Presented to him by President Barack Obama), and finally The Olympic Order.
Within the Kennedy Center article it said “He learned from the best, and his music has been at least as bright. The sounds of George Gershwin, of Aaron Copland, of Leonard Bernstein all celebrate and define the American experience in music. John Williams, joyfully, is carrying that celebration into the 21st Century.”
He won Academy Awards for Fiddler on the Roof, Jaws, Star Wars (1977), E.T., and Schindler’s List.
He now has more nominations than any other living person.
He won PrimeTime Emmy Awards for Heidi, Jane Eyre, and Great Performances.
Golden Globe Awards for Jaws, Star Wars, E.T., and Memoirs of a Geisha.
He has won 20 Grammy Awards and has been nominated for countless other awards.
Sources:
https://www.classicfm.com/composers/williams/guides/facts-williams/
https://www.olympic.org/news/ioc-awards-the-olympic-order-to-john-williams
https://www.kennedy-center.org/artists/w/wa-wn/john-williams/
https://www.filmmusicnotes.com/john-williams-superman-theme-superman-march/
https://www.allmusic.com/composition/schindlers-list-film-score-mc0002402598?1591832125810