“He doesn’t need the movies, the movies need him,” the music magazine once wrote. rolling stone about the American composer John Williams. “Jaws,” for which Williams received his first Oscar for Best Original Score in 1976, shows how well he can marry image and sound. The composition consists of a few notes, but by varying the speed and volume, the imminent danger is clearly perceived. Williams knows how to create suspense like almost no other film music composer.
The complexity of his compositions can be seen, for example, in the science fiction series “Star Wars” by George Lucas. John Williams transformed the epic of this war into a space opera, which is now regularly performed live before audiences at the Vienna or Berlin Philharmonic. It’s unforgettable how he musically announces the appearance of the spaceship fleet, how he makes the battle between good and evil sound dramatic and heroic at the same time. Each character, each important scene, has its own musical theme. The composer was inspired by another master of monumental sound works of art: Richard Wagner.
Williams doesn’t read scripts.
Williams’ way of working is unusual: he never reads the scripts, but instead has the finished film shown to him before he starts composing. Only then does she retire and start working. He writes the notes by hand, he does not use a computer. The first and greatest successes were obtained with his compositions for Steven Spielberg’s blockbusters. The Hollywood director and the film musician have made 28 films together.
In 2016, during the American Film Institute’s Lifetime Achievement Award celebration, Spielberg listed the qualities of Williams’ art: developing the music for the finished film, knowing what power there is in music but also in the absence of music, and composing. in a complex way like Debussy or mature like Stravinsky. And he described the connection between director and composer as “a perfect marriage.” “Without John Williams, bicycles and brooms don’t fly, carpets don’t have strength, dinosaurs don’t walk, we don’t marvel, we don’t cry,” Spielberg praised the composer at the time.
successful compositions
Williams was born in New York in 1932 as the son of an orchestral musician. He studied piano at the renowned Juilliard School. In addition to his Hollywood career, he has performed as a guest conductor with many orchestras. He also composed the Olympic anthem “Call of the Champions” for the Salt Lake City Winter Games (2002) and the music for the inauguration ceremony of United States President Barack Obama in 2009, and wrote music for famous performers such as violinist Itzhak Perlman and cellist Yo-Yo Ma.
As a young musician, he did not intend to write film scores, Williams once told BBC Music magazine. He was more interested in playing the piano and was “pretty good” at it. The Hollywood career was, he said, the result of a bit of luck. “I just put one foot in front of the other,” Williams declared at the time.
More Oscar nominations than anyone
The list of films for which he composed soundtracks is impressive, albeit very Hollywood-focused: “ET”, “Superman”, “Dracula” or “Schindler’s List” are part of this collaboration, which is still going on. In 2017, she composed the music for the Spielberg film “The Editor”. Williams has already broken records in awards and nominations, no one can overshadow him. With the soundtrack to “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker,” Williams earned his 52nd Oscar nomination in 2020.
This makes him the living person with the most Oscar nominations. He has won the trophy five times since 1972: for “Anatevka”, “Jaws”, “Star Wars”, “ET” and most recently, in 1994, for “Schindler’s List”.. (AND)
Source: Eluniverso
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