Program
At The Movies: The Music of John Williams
Jerry Junkin, Artistic Director and Conductor
Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center
April 19, 2016 | 7:30 p.m.
The Cowboys (1972) — John Williams/arr. Jay Bocook
Superman March (1978) — arr. Paul Lavender
Close Encounters of the Third Kind — (1977) arr. Stephen Bulla
Olympic Fanfare and Theme (1984) — arr. Jay Bocook
With Malice Toward None (2012) — arr. Paul Lavender
Brian Shaw, trumpet solo
JFK Suite (1991) — arr. Paul Lavender and John Moss
- Main Theme
- Motorcade
- Arlington
Star Wars Main Title (1977) — arr. Stephen Bulla
Imperial March (1980) — arr. Stephen Bulla
Scherzo for X-Wings from The Force Awakens (2015) — arr. Paul Lavender
The Jedi Steps and Finale from The Force Awakens (2015) — arr. Paul Lavender
Adventures on Earth from E. T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982) — arr. Paul Lavender
Program Notes
John Towner Williams (b. February 8, 1932)
One of the most popular and successful composers of the modern age, John Williams is the winner of five Academy Awards, 17 Grammy Awards, three Golden Globes, two Emmys and five awards from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. Best known for his film scores and ceremonial music, Williams is also a noted composer of concert works, and a renowned conductor.
IMDb lists Williams as the composer for 159 films, with four more in various stages of productions. His credits include Saving Private Ryan, Lincoln, Amistad, Seven Years in Tibet, The Lost World, Rosewood, Sleepers, Nixon, Sabrina, Schindler’s List, Jurassic Park, Home Alone, Far and Away, JFK, Hook, Presumed Innocent, Always, Born on the Fourth of July, the Indiana Jones series, The Accidental Tourist, Empire of the Sun, The Witches of Eastwick, the Star Wars series, E. T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, Superman, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Jaws, and Goodbye Mr. Chips.
Born in New York, Williams and his family moved to Los Angeles in 1948. He attended UCLA and studied composition with Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco. After service in the Air Force and a stint at the Juillard School, he worked as a jazz pianist and recording artist. When he returned to Los Angeles, he began his career in film, first as a pianist, then as a composer, working with such musical legends as Bernard Herrmann, Alfred Newman, and Franz Waxman.
Williams is also an accomplished conductor, having conducted many of his own film scores. In 1980 he was appointed conductor and artistic director of the Boston Pops Orchestra, succeeding Arthur Fiedler. He continues as Laureate Conductor of that ensemble, and makes seasonal appearances with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. He has guest conducted the New York Philharmonic, the National Symphony Orchestra, the U. S. Army Herald Trumpets, the Joint Armed Forces Chorus, and the Choral Arts Society of Washington.
The Star-Spangled Banner
On January 1, 2004, John Williams served as the Grand Marshall of the 114 th Rose Parade, prior to the Rose Bowl football game in Pasadena, California. As part of the pre-game festivities, Williams conducted this exciting new setting for our national anthem. The USC Trojans defeated the Michigan Wolverines in the game, but the lasting impact from the 2004 Tournament of Roses is this John Williams gem.
The Cowboys Overture
In this 1972 John Wayne western, an aging rancher and trail boss (Wayne) recruits a cadre of young boys to help him drive his cattle to market, in the face of financial disaster, rustlers, and the oncoming winter. Williams’ score captures the wide-open plains of the American West. It was this ability in The Cowboys, as well as the score for The Reivers (1969), which caught Stephen Spielberg’s ear, prompting the young conductor to tap Williams as the composer for Spielberg’s first feature film, The Sugarland Express.
Superman March
Critics of this year’s Warner Brothers release, Batman v. Superman, had many complaints, but one of the most plaintive came from an online critic who said, “It’s just not Superman without the John Williams music!” Indeed, when advances in special effects allowed Superman to return to the big screen in 1978, John Williams’ score defined the character as much, or more, than Christopher Reeve’s blue eyes and strong jaw. Superman: The Movie was in production at the same time as Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, although independent of both. Together, the three films are credited with inspiring nearly 40 years of popular science fiction and superhero movies.
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
In Stephen Spielberg’s second feature film, Jaws, Williams took two notes, and created an identifiable villain long before the actual shark ever appeared onscreen. With Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Williams expanded his theme to five notes, and created a new language the film’s scientists could use to communicate with the aliens of the film’s giant Mother Ship. Williams also used the five-note theme throughout the score, making it an instantly recognizable musical motif and an icon of popular culture. The movie’s soundtrack was released on vinyl, 8-track tape, and audiocassette, and peaked at #17 on U.S. Billboard album chart. Although the music lost the Oscar for best film score to Star Wars, released the same year, it won two Grammy Awards, for film score and instrumental composition.
Olympic Fanfare and Theme
In 1980, in the wake of the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan, the United States boycotted the Moscow Summer Olympics, so when the games came to Los Angeles in 1984, the host committee went all out to make it an All-American Olympiad. And there was no more American composer than John Williams. His Olympic Fanfare and Theme not only won a Grammy Award, it has become one of the most well-known Olympic themes in the history of the games.
With Malice Toward None from Lincoln
Steven Spielberg’s 2012 historical epic focused on President Abraham Lincoln’s struggle to outlaw slavery before the Civil War ended—a tactic that ensured slavery would not return as
Confederate states rejoined the Union. To score a film about both a vital issue and a towering historical figure, Williams drew on early American folk music, fiddle tunes, and battlefield trumpet calls to evoke an era where the highest ideals of our nation were defended by bare-knuckle politics. He recorded the score with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
Christopher Martin, the CSO’s principal trumpet, performed the haunting trumpet solo in With Malice Toward None. The Dallas Winds’ principal trumpet, Brian Shaw, does the honors tonight.
JFK Suite
Oliver Stone’s tense political thriller about the Kennedy assassination called for a different kind of score, mixing the idealism of Kennedy’s Camelot era with the confusion, suspense, and paranoia of the assassination and the ensuing investigation. The movements included in tonight’s program include the overall Kennedy theme, which is repeated throughout the film; the ominously edgy score for the motorcade scene, and the brooding finale at Arlington National Cemetery.
Star Wars (Main Title)
Imperial March from The Empire Strikes Back
Scherzo for X Wings from Star Wars: The Force Awakens
The Jedi Steps and Finale from Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Film music in the 1960s drew on a range of styles, from jazz and avant garde to rock, and pop. While there were a few orchestral scores for films like Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago, those films were aimed at the WWII generation. As the Baby Boomers came of age in the 1970’s they had not yet found a film, or a film score, to define their generation. Until Star Wars.
From that first glimpse of the Imperial Star Destroyer, Star Wars gave Boomers something absolutely new: spectacular special effects, heroes instead of anti-heroes; a philosophy that resonated; and a soundtrack to launch even the wildest heroic fantasies. Establishment critics scoffed at this low-budget science fiction film from a virtually unknown director, which made it just that much more fun for the slightly post-counterculture generation who came of age between Woodstock and the disco era.
Although Williams had been composing film scores since the early 1960s, it was Star Wars that made him the most beloved American composer of his time. Drawing inspiration from Hollywood’s Golden Age, and such composers as Erich Wolfgang Korngold and Franz Waxman, Williams re-introduced the idea of musical themes to identify characters, and didn’t shy away from sweepingly melodic romanticism.
The result was grand, and an industry-wide game changer. The film quickly surpassed Jaws as the top grossing film in history, and still stands as the third highest-grossing film in the world. The two-LP album for Star Wars became the best selling score-only soundtrack of all time. Williams won the Oscar for Best Original Score in 1977, and the American Film Institute ranks Star Wars at #1 on its list of best film scores ever.
Williams expanded on his work when the sequel, The Empire Strikes Back, was released in 1980, introducing Imperial March as a theme for Darth Vader. In 2012, George Lucas sold the rights to the Star Wars franchise to The Walt Disney Company. Disney immediately began plans to complete Lucas’ original vision of three interrelated film trilogies by creating three new films set after the conclusion of the original Star Wars/Empire Strikes Back/Return of the Jedi trilogy. As he had with the six previous Star Wars films, Williams stepped forward to compose the score.
Although he revived themes from the original films for such characters as Luke, Leia, and Han, he also developed new music to support new characters and settings. “It’s all a continuation of an initial set of ideas,” he said of the process. “It’s a bit like adding paragraphs to a letter that’s been going on for a number of years.”
Adventures on Earth from E. T. the Extra-Terrestrial
In 1982, Steven Spielberg took a story about his own imaginary childhood friend, and spun it into the highest-grossing film of the 1980s, which has been hailed as “the greatest science fiction film ever made.” E. T. the Extra-Terrestrial is an adventure tale told from a child’s point of view, as hero Elliot befriends and tries to protect E. T., the little alien botanist who follows him home. The soaring score, with its triumphant bicycle chase finale, won the Academy Award for Best Original Score for 1982.
–program notes written by Gigi Sherrell Norwood