John Williams at 90: You're Gonna Need A Bigger Music Shelf

In honour of the Maestro’s 90th birthday, let's take a selective look back over the amazing career of John Williams.

Film score enthusiast, Mike Copping, writes about his love of film music and how John Williams has always been a constant in that, whether it be through his work on television or on the big screen.

I had developed a passion for film music, and by default film, in the early 1970's.

Along with Jerry Goldsmith, John Barry, and Ennio Morricone, the name John Williams was already familiar to me and I had been aware of his music for a while.

His rich Americana score for The Reivers, his experimental music for Images, and the classically styled The Paper Chase, were all varied and memorable. Prior to these big screen assignments, the music he composed for Lost In Space, Land Of The Giants, and The Time Tunnel, for Irwin Allen's TV productions, made very big impressions.

What I didn't know then was that ‘Johnny’ Williams, played piano for Henry Mancini, and for Elmer Bernstein, and in fact he can be seen in the John Cassavettes private detective show Johnny Staccato (which was jazzily scored by Bernstein) playing piano in a night club, taking over from the star of the show as he has to leave on a case.

Obviously, he had established himself in both the worlds of cinema and TV, with distinction, and success, having also earned himself an Oscar for his work on Fiddler On The Roof.

And more kudos was to come for his work within the successful disaster movie cycle, working again with Irwin Allen on The Posiedon Adventure, stepping away for Earthquake, then returning to the Allen fold for what remains my favourite Williams score, The Towering Inferno.

After being struck with his amazing gift for melody, drama, and building tension on that film, I remember reading in Film Review that he was going to follow up his work on The Sugarland Express for Steven Speilberg, with Jaws.

I remember queuing in the summer of 1975 to see the film, and being impressed with the characters, story, dialogue, photography, and of course the music.

The story of Spielberg’s initial skepticism and amusement when Williams first played him the duh dum, duh dum theme on the piano, has passed into film music legend.

Clearly Williams' musical notion of a relentless killing machine was perfect, and his music literally helped turn the film into a monster hit.

This was the first time in a while that I could recall people generally talking about a score, not a song in a film, because people noticed it and appreciated it. In fact fellow composer Lalo Schifrin recorded the Jaws theme and scored a sizeable hit.

So, the groundwork had been laid for the revival of the traditional symphonic film score in a big way, as heralded once again by Film Review's little nugget of information, that Williams was going to score Star Wars.

So to use the old cliche, the rest is history, with huge critical and commercial successes like Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Raiders of the Lost Ark, E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, Harry Potter, and many others, in quick succession.

But what of the lesser known titles in the John Williams cannon? Those equally deserving of attention but that perhaps less known to those outside film music circles?

A.I.: Artificial Intelligence - continuing the Williams/Speilberg partnership, it is for me his magnum opus. His music for this 2001 film is driving, and dramatic, but also subtle and highly emotive, and boasts one of his strongest themes, presented as a song as well as in the underscore.

The Fury – A collaboration with Brian DePalma for this 1978 Science Fiction horror film, allows him room for some truly stunning set pieces, notably an escape sequence from a black site stronghold, and some wonderfully dark fairground fun, as a carousel is used to lethal effect.

Dracula – John Badham’s 1979 adaptation was another wonderfully evocative score, full of dark yearning and foreboding. According to the original sleeve notes John Badham revealed that surprisingly Williams had never seen any previous Dracula films.

There are others of course (Jane Eyre, The Accidental Tourist, Munich, War Horse), but those above are a few of my favourites.

So, if I may, I’ll close with a friendly warning, as you usually find with the work of the very best film composers, the music of John Williams can be highly addictive, so much so that you may find that you’re gonna need a bigger music shelf.

Words by Mike Copping

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