Key Takeaways
- John Williams’ perspective: He has expressed a lack of fondness for film music despite his success in the field.
- Classical comparison: Williams believes that film scores do not hold the same value as traditional classical music.
- Longevity in music: His nearly seven-decade career indicates a deep appreciation for music, including film scores.
- Documentary feature: A recent documentary on Disney+ highlights his contributions to music.
What’s the first piece of music you hear when you think of John Williams? The dooming minors of Jaws? The main title to Superman? The swelling strings that accompany Elliott and E.T. past the moon? The point is, you picked something from a film. But for John Williams, film scores aren’t all we’re making them out to be.
According to an upcoming biography, John Williams: A Composer’s Life (via The Guardian), the legendary composer/conductor said, “I never liked film music very much,” which is a hell of a confession considering he has 54 Oscar nominations in such categories. So what’s Williams’ problem? “Film music, however good it can be – and it usually isn’t, other than maybe an eight-minute stretch here and there … I just think the music isn’t there. That, what we think of as this precious great film music is … we’re remembering it in some kind of nostalgic way …”
John Williams would go on to say that film scores just don’t stack up to what we traditionally view as classical music and thus don’t belong in the same venue – which is quite a claim considering Williams has performed his iconic piece in front of audiences many times before. “Just the idea that film music has the same place in the concert hall as the best music in the canon is a mistaken notion, I think. A lot of [film music] is ephemeral. It’s certainly fragmentary and, until somebody reconstructs it, it isn’t anything that we can even consider as a concert piece.”
But we all know that John Williams most certainly has an appreciation for film music. Sure, he has plenty of concertos and chamber pieces to his credit, but you don’t devote close to seven decades to anything unless you’re completely in love with it. So we’ll give Williams a pass here – but we will still hold him accountable for Heartbeeps…
Last year, John Williams was the subject of a documentary on Disney+. You can read our 9/10 review here.
What stands as your all-time favorite John Williams score? Give us your top 3 in the comments section below!
