Legacy and Continued Musical Passion

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That's two zero k dot org slash plUs. In just a few taps, you'll get a link to your personal subscriber feed which works in almost every podcast app If you listen on Apple podcasts, it's as simple as just going to our show page and tapping subscribe Thanks You're listening. twentyw thousand cs The stories behind the world's most recognizable and interesting sounds I'm Dallas Taylor In our last episode, we explored the early life and career of legendary film composer John Williams John got his start as a session piano player, recording with orchestras and pop singers, and then started composing for film and TV. In the early seventies, he teamed up with a young Stehven Spielberg and scored two of his early blockbusters, Jaws and Close encounters of the Third K Through Spielberg, John met George Lucas and created the iconic music for Star Wars By the end of the nineteen seventies, John was the hottest composer in Hollywood, scoring huge films like the nineteen seventy eight Superman movie star of Superman, the late Christopher Reeve loved John's music and even showed up for the recording sessions. In the liner notes for a Superman music compilation, John said, quote He was kind of a fan. He would sit next to the podium or sit in the recording room. And also later films that I did, Chris would come around sometimes even unannounced and just sit and enjoy listening to the orchestra. In nineteen seventy nine, John was back with his friend, Stehven Spielberg, and after two consecutive hits, Spielberg is on top of the world. That's Tim Greeving, author of John Williams A Composer's Life. He gets his proverbial blank check to make his next movie, which is nineteen forty one which is a, in my opinion, horrible whiff of something attempting to be a comedy set during World War II. It's a great score. But as for the film itself, well, if you've never heard of Steven Spielberg's nineteen forty one, there's probably a reason for that. Here's Roger Ebert's take With all his huge box office successes, even Steven Spielberg is human and even Spielberg can make a stinker. And the big stinker of his career was a nineteen seventy nine movie named nineteen forty one. a critical and box office disaster that was supposed to be a nonstop slap stick comedy but only really qualified in the non stop department. So it's coming off that that he makes Raiders a Lost Stark, which he does to kind of prove himself. and to prove that he can make a film on budget and on time that works, that's tight, that's fun The character of Indiana Jones was created by George Lucas and inspired by the action serials of the nineteen thirties. George imagined him as an adventurer slash archeologist, who wouldd explore exotic locations and fight evil villains. Spielberg loved the idea, and the two of them developed the movie together Here's Lucas giving a toast to John Williams at an AFI award ceremony. Stehven and I sat on the beach to talk about the story for Indy And instantly We both said at the same time, John has to write the music Steve said, great That's the most important part. Let's go have lunch and we can write the story later. On Raiders, John had two possible themes and he played both of them for Spielberg and Spielberg just said, canan't we just use them both So the Raiders' March, which has kind of two parts, if you think about it, is the two alternate ideas that he demoed for Spielber, which I like The first melody is one idea Shortly after, we hear the second one Now, Indy isn't a soldier, so it's interesting that John composed a military style march for the character If you think about it, it's like, whyy does Indiana Jones have a march? I think what John Williams was tapping into was this nostalgia we have for past adventures. likeike when we hear a march, it reminds us of something you might hear at a fourth of July parade George Lucas jokingly compared the Raiders's music to Hogan's Heroes, a sixty sitcom set during World War two Here's that show's credits theme There's just something kind of subtly comforting and throwback about the sound of a march and a marching band that fit with that character and with that adventure The early eighties were a whirlwind for John. He married his second wife, Samantha Winslow, who he met through some of the work he did for a PBS station And he had back to back hits with the Empire strikes back and Raiders of the Lost Ark He's just sort of on fire as a composer and working with directors who Giving him these amazing canvases on top of all that. An interesting and important thing that happens in nineteen eighty is he becomes the conductor of the Boston Pops. The Boston Pops is an offshoot of the world renowned Boston Symphony Orchestra It' K kind of an unusual zigzag for him. It wasn't really common for a busy, successful film composer to go conduct an orchestra. But he kind of wanted to prove that he could do more than just score films. He wanted to have more time with an orchestra that he basically could develop as a composer and a conductor with his own group But it also put him kind of on a national television level. He was already famous because of the scores, but now he was on PBS conducting an orchestra. From Symphony Hall in Boston, John Williams, the Boston Pops Orchestra, and special guest Sammy Davis Jr Tonight for an evening at Park One of the important things about that is that Film music had never really been taken seriously in concert halls before. It was seen as a kind of second class sell out kind of music among a lot of classical folks. Slowly but surely, John Williams starts programming the best of film music in these concerts and just Getting audiences and culture used to hearing this music in concert and taking it seriously and recognizing that the best film music is just great music Under John's direction, the Boston Pops played pieces by all kinds of film composers, from John's heroes, like Max Steiner. to his peers, like Jerry Goldsmith himself So throughout the eighties and into the early nineties, he was doing that. And he took the pops on tour throughout the country, took them on tour to Japan. It was a really important part of his life every summer and every Christmas conducting all these concerts in Boston Tonight, John Woodams and the Boston Pops Orchestra invite you to a Christmas at Pops But conducting an orchestra didn't slow down John's work as a film composer, And in nineteen eighty two, he scored Spielberg's next movie, ET The Extraterrestrial In the film's most famous scene, a group of kids are riding bicycles, with ET in a basket, and being chased by the authorities Then ET uses some alien magic to make the bikes fly into the air so they can escape John wrote a long dynamic piece to score that section. But when it came time to record it with the orrchestra, he had a hard time matching it to the picture edit Here's John in an interview with conductor Stefan De Nv I was trying over and over again. It's a long sequence about ten minutes and every bar has something, something to match here. And if it doesn't match on the screen, it doesn't have its effect, it doesn't really look right. And I made, I don't know how many takes, how many performances attempts to do this. I couldn't get it right So Steven Spielberg stepped in saying, John, just play the music. I know it fits. It has exactly the silhouette of the action. You have the orchestra to play it. was's comfortable And I will recut the film tok the orchestral performance, which he did. This is a pretty rare move. In filmmaking, the music almost always follows the picture edit, not the other way around And it's a testament to how much Spielberg trusted John Here's a clip of how the scene turned out kids are trying to get away on their bikes There's a roadblock. They're about to be caught en, lift off And I have a feeling that something about the end of that movie, which is so moving, I have to think that some of that emotion that we get is because the orchestra was allowed to play Wout any inhibition John later told Stepvenen Colbert that of all the scores he'd written, ET is probably his favorite. He explained how the main musical theme develops through the story We remember the film when the bicycles take off but prior to that the bicycles, you will hear Two or three notes of the same. That's all And the next time you may hear three or four notes And it's beginning to form in your memory as we're going along to think And as the bicycles take off, you hear all twelve of the notes. and the melody is realized and finished I'd like to believe that the audience As a sense of completion and something has been made orally that is created and aimed at that very moment As the eighties went on, John scored his third Star Wars film, two Indiana Jones sequels, and many others. He also wrote two themes for the Olympics, One for the Los Angeles Games in nineteen eighty four. And won for the Soul Games in nineteen eighty eight Then, in nineteen ninety, John scored a movie about a boy who accidentally gets left behind on Christmas, home alone. It was John's first chance to write Christmas music, and after watching the rough cut, he wanted to score these comedic hijinks like a ballet. For the chaotic scene where Kevin's family realized they overslept, John borrowed from Chchaikvsky's Christmas ballet The Nutcracker This music is from Home Alone And here's the Russian dance from the Nutcracker For the title theme, John wrote a legit Christmas carol that's since become a holiday classic. The lyrics were written by British songwriter Leslie Brickis, who also co wrote the songs for Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. It's called Somewhere in my Memory As John told Variety. I think homeome alone is very special. It's a timeless piece It ages very, very well very rewarding and very satisfying The same year that Home Alone came out, sci fi author Michael Crichon published a novel about scientists bringing dinosaurs back to life. It was called Jurassic Park Several directors tried to get the movie rights to the story, including James Cameron, Tim Burton, and Joe Dante Crichon wanted Spielberg to adapt his book, and Spielberg agreed And as usual, he asked John Williams to score it. The interesting thing about the approach to Jurassic Parks score is you wouldd think that it would just be sored like a straight up monster movie, a creature movie. For example, here's the theme from a nineteen fifties dinosaur movie called The Beast from twenty thousandousand Fathoms John Williams being the genius that he is, recognizes that there's something kind of religious about the way the scientists feel about seeing dinosaurs come back to life. They're in awe Here's Stehven Spielberg in an interview with Deadline John talked about the nobility of these animals. We never called them monsters. We never called them dinosaurs. We called them animals score this movie with the heart of a child that knew how to create a sense of wonder about these amazing magnificent animals. And so the theme for Jurassic Park, there's multiple themes, but there's a theme for it that is this kind of serene hymn like melody that is tapping into the awe and wonder and almost kind of religious grandeur of the way these characters feel. People have walked down the aisle to the Jurassic Park theme, which on its face seems ridiculous. but if you hear the music, it's perfect for a wedding And obviously there's action and terror and stuff in that score too But Jurassic Park wasn't the only Spielberg Williams collaboration from that year. Steven Spielberg couldn't attend the scoring sessions for that because he was already in Poland shooting Schindler's list So it was kind of an unusual timing thing where they couldn't eat together. They saw the film together and then John Williams was on his own to do his thing. At that point, Spielberg trusted him so implicitly that he knew he'd do a great job and they would send cassettes over to Poland for Spielberg to listen to on his way to and from set shooting Schimler's list. So it's a really strange juxtaposition of this like Eescapist fun popcorn dinosaur movie while Spielberg is in the cold making this harrowing Holocaust drama. Schindler's list is based on the true story of Oscar Schindler, a German member of the Nazi Party. During the Holocaust, he helped save over tw thousandve hundred Jews by employing them in his factories As John told Deadline, when Spielberg showed him the rough cut, John was so moved that he couldn't speak. So he went outside for a few minutes to get some air. And I went outside and walked around for four or five minutes and came back in to start our meeting And I said to him, Stephen This is a great, great film. And you need a better composer than I am to do the score. And he said I know, but they're all dead. Schimler's list was a tricky challenge because they're dealing with real history and some of the most like daunting, sobering history of the twentieth century. And so they felt this real burden and responsibility to do it right. And part of the idea of Schmler's list was let's not overscore it. let's leave a lot of it clean and without any music at all The whole visual approach to that was make it feel like a documentary almost. It's in black and white. There's not a lot of fancy rain shots or anything like that. So the music had to sort of honor that same approach of austere and respectful. But the thing that John Williams keyed into was the score should not be about the tragedy and the brutality, for the most part, it should be about the humanity of these people And he came up with this theme that's like a Jewish lullaby basically And it's a sad piece, but really it's a piece about something you might hear as a child and the comfort that that brings and just emphasizes the souls and the humanity of these characters Schindler's list earned John his fifth Academy Award foollowing Fiddler on the Rof, Jaws, Star Wars, and ET In his acceptance speech, John thanked his music editor, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and ended with And for a man who always makes work fun and is a seeming unending source of inspiration, Steven Spielberg Thank you By this point, John was more than thirty five years into his film composing career, and he wasn't slowing down Soon enough, he'd score one of the most iconic war movies of all time This is one of the most requested scores throughout our entire United States military. And he'd reinvent the music of Star Wars with an epic choral theme I guess a wonderful piece of music with a choir and it looks very operatic and very much like Star Wars That's coming up After the break Fourth of July savings are happening now at the Home Depot with select appliances starting at three hundred and ninety eight dollars Plus, get free delivery on appliance purchases of three hundred and ninety eight dollars or more, no membership required Upgrade your kitchen with a modern and sleek GE profile refrigerator featuring hands free autofill for the perfect pour every time. 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Sign up for your one dollar per month trial today at shhopify d. com slash twenty k. Go to shopify dot com slash two zero k. That's shhopify dot com slash twenty k. By the late nineties, John Williams had already had an astonishing career. With hit movie after hit movie, he had helped bring big, sweeping film scores back into the mainstream It was not inevitable that John Williams would be able to do the kind of scoring that he did. The old fashioned orchestral melodic, operatic kind of score had gone out of fashion in like the nineteen fifties. So people like Martin Scorsesee and other contemporaries of Spielberg and Lucas are not looking to that kind of scoring approach. They're looking to pop music somethinghing unconventional or modern. So it was because Spielberg and Lucas were these kind of big kids who had this nostalgia for old movies from the thirties and forties and had this sort of classical sensibility that they wanted someone like John Williams to do the kind of scores like Star Wars and Raiders that it was like lightning in a bottle of the timing of these guys all making movies together at the same time whichich then was insanely popular and made millions of dollars at the box office. By nineteen ninety eight, John Williams and Steven Spielberg had made fifteen films together And their next collaboration was the World War twoI epic Saving Private Ryan. Keep in mind, John was born in nineteen thirty two And he remembered growing up during World War II So for him, this story wasn't distant history, and he wanted to do it justice. But he felt that using too much music would take away from the realism So for many of the battle scenes, they left music out Here's John in a behind the scenes featurette. Most of the battle scenes were done in a realistic way. so we had the sound of the tanks and the sound of the guns and all of the the atmosphere of the struggle And the music really struck the emotional part of it and the quieter scenes really The movie's main musical theme is called Him to the Fallen, which doesn't play until the end credits. The hyn to the Fallen was kind of a set piece. You had the sense that we needed a kind of requium almost. for the people lost in the film. And how to do that tastefully and discreetly and quietly and hopefully elegantly It was the opportunity that it presented And of course, chorus and orchestra are still the best medium for that kind of thing When describing this score a deadline, Spielberg said, Musically, it honors all of the veterans both today and yesterday. And it's why the military is always asking if they could play, perform this score. This is one of the most requested scores throughout our entire United States military A year later, John would lean into this choral sound again This time, it was for a new Star Wars movie, The Phantom Menace The film's most famous piece plays during the epic final battle, when Obi Wan and Qai Gon Jen fight Garth Maul. It's called Duel of the Fates Dueling with fate, the making of the Pantomenace, John said. The great sword fight at the end of the film The decision to make that choral was just the result of my thinking that it should have a kind of ritualistic or quasi religious feeling to it, if you like, and that the introduction of a chorus might be just the thing Now, up to that point, Star Wars was not known for choral music, so for this ancient alien universe, what word should the choir sing To start, John used a medieval Welsh poem called The Battle of the Trees. It's about a sorcerer who makes trees come alive and fight the forces of the Oworld. This poem was likely an inspiration for the Es in Lord of the Rings. Come my friends The Ets are going to b John took two lines from the poem and translated them into multiple languages. He picked the ancient language Sanskrit because he liked the vowel sounds. Next, he rearranged the words by ear, moving syllables around until it felt right. Then it was just a matter of coaching the choir Here's John working with them in a scoring session I've chosen these Sanskrit words because of the quality of the vowels Do it again, please You see how pure a choral sound you can get Don't force it So That's better Here's the final version H here's George Lucas describing the piece in that behind the scenes documentary. It's a wonderful piece of music with a choir and it's very operatic and very much like Star Wars Through the years, John has developed very specific preferences for how he likes to work. For instance, some composers will begin writing music when all they have is a script, or maybe the storyboards. But John doesn't like to start writing until he can see the actual footage. As he told himPR over the years have always felt more comfortable if I could go into a project room and look at a film and not really know what to expect If you read the script first, you form all kinds of preconceptions about how things look, what the location is like, what the actors are like. And then you may look at what the direction has chosen. it doesn't comport with your conceptions at all But screening the film lets him experience it like the audience will I had the luxury of going into the dark project room and being surprised when the audience is surprised and being bored when they're bored. I think that gives me a sense of what my job is, where I can press the accelerator button if I need to or support an emotion or don't When he does start scoring, he does it the old fashioned way He learned how to score films in the nineteen fifties, which meant you worked with pencil and paper and a stopwatch. and he never really changed. He never was interested in technology. He's never owned a computer. He doesn't own a smartphone. He eventually had to have people kind of translate his stuff to pro tools and you know the digital machinery of modern filmmaking and modern recording But his actual process is still doing his whole orchestration or some like condensed version of the orchestration on paper. He doesn't even really write at the piano. He will just go to the piano sometimes to solve a problem or to figure something out, but he's actually mostly just writing in his head. And he knows timing so well that if this needs to happen within a couple of seconds or this piece needs to last two minutes He knows in his head timing of music innately, which is pretty astounding In the twenty first century, John has stayed very busy. On the franchise side, he scored two more Indiana Jones films and five more Star Wars movies, completing the nine film Skywalker saga. John Williams could have left that series at any time and no one would have blamed him, but he really clung to it. And partly it was out of loyalty to people like George Lucas, but part of it was that Star Wars was his baby and he didn't want other people messing around with his themes and with his music. So he just stayed on Star Wars, which again, I think is why Star Wars will kind of define his legacy The Star Wars sequel trilogy revolves around a new, force sensitive character named Ray, and Ray's theme is probably the most well known piece of music from the new series. Here's John in a featurette called The Sound of a Galaxy Ray, her theme has a musical grammar that is not heroic in the sense of a hero's theme It's kind of an adventure theme that maybe promises more than resolving itself in the most major triumphant resolutions Meanwhile, John has continued working with Steven Spielberg on almost everything that he makes, including, Catch Me If you Can No War of the worlds and Lincoln Again, he doesn't have anything to prove. He doesn't have to keep working, but he just, he loves composing, He loves challenging himself. He loves to do something he's never done before John has also continued to conduct live orchestras, including annual concerts at the Hollywood Bowl with the Los Angeles Phil Harmonic. In twenty twenty five, the Hollywood Bowl renamed their stage, the John Williams Stage And he just kept proving that good film music is really fun to play for musicians and fun to hear for audiences and it's great music And within the last five or ten years, he was even invited to conduct the Berlin and the Vienna Philharmonic and these sort of like historically important symphony orchestras. which just felt like a coronation of a kind of like he proved the case that film music belongs in these concert halls where great classical music is played, and that even the most snobby kind of serious discerning orchestras wanted him to come bring his music into their houses In short He conquered Hollywood and then he sort of conquered the classical world after that Several years ago, Tim started working on his book about John, which is the first major biography of this iconic, but very private man. He was never comfortable with the idea of having a biography. so that was a thing we had to get over. It took me a long time to even get in the door for that But eventually, Tim broke through and John agreed to be interviewed. It was like a dream come true for me because I've been obsessed with John Williams since I was nine years old, which is when I heard Jurastic Park for the first time So to go into his office where he wrote Jurassic Park And see the piano where he wrote the themes for ET and Jurassic Parkon was just like out of body for me And he put me at ease right away and it was like a sitcom of like a young fan talking to a brilliant artist genius. But we developed a certain kind of rapport that I looked forward to those days of going into his studio and I kind of had a captive John Williams that I could just anything I ever wanted to ask him, I could ask him. It was amazing Through those sessions, Tim got to know John in a way that probably no other journalist has John Williams has always seemed like a man out of time. Like he seemed like an old man in a young man's body from the beginning. Yoyoma kind of described him as Santa Claus's brother Someone else talked about him being like this school teacher in a nineteenth century Vermont schoolhouse He's got this sort of like mannered Genteel intelligent kindly grandfatherly quality, and he's always had that And obviously, as he became more of a grandfather type, it fit more But he's always been like that. He's always been serious about his craft but not taking himself too seriously. He's a lot funnier than maybe people realize. He's not like a boring hang. He's very fun His habits are consistent. He eats the same lunch every single day. It's a turkey sandwich with orange soda He has the same routine. he gets up at the same time. He works for the same amount of hours. He finishes the day by playing around a golf and then having a drink He reads music at night, he doesn't listen to it,. He just reads it off the paper He reads books about history, about music history, about all kinds of things. He's maybe the smartest person I've ever met in my life. But it's not just John's routines and habits that are consistent,. it's also his working relationships. Every person I interviewed confirmed that he's the nicest guy Everybody loves him. He never loses his temper And he doesn't have a huge ego, which for someone with his success and his resume, he should have a huge ego, but he doesn't. He's genuinely very humble. So one of the challenges of writing a book about him was his life is not full of drama It's not like he's out there burning bridges in these big fights with people or You know, he spends most of his life hunched over his scores or at the piano or conducting concerts Beyond that, he has a wife of almost forty five years, along with three grown children and multiple grandchildren. There's not a lot going on in his personal life beyond those things. It's just it's all consumed by music. But I think it's part of who he is is that he has such a high standard of excellence for himself That I think is remarkable, but it speaks to why he's been so successful In twenty twenty two, John scored Steven Spielberg's film The Fablem', a coming of age story about a boy who falls in love with filmmaking. It's basically a fictionalized version of Spielberg's early life. John Williams is ninety when he scores the Fable Menenss. A lot of people think it's maybe going to be his last score. It would be a really fitting final score because it's basically him scoring the story of his friend's childhood And John Williams knew Spielberg's parents They would often go to scoring sessions and so John had some affection for the real Mr. and Mr. Spelberg. And his theme was basically a love letter to them and to Steven Spielberg And it's a very tender score There's this beautiful main theme that's basically about the mother's son relationship And it sounds again like a lullaby or something you could hum or you'd hear your mother humming when you're a kid And it's beautiful. It's one of the most beautiful things he's ever written, I think. Year after year with film after film Jon has tapped into something that millions of people connect with, creating some of the most iconic and moving moments in cinema history His scores strike a perfect balance between accessible and intricate. So no matter your age, your background, or your knowledge of music, there's something for everyone to latch onto So much of his music is seeming simplicity on top and all this complexity underneath the surface, whichich makes musicians enjoy playing it. It's challenging to play, it's interesting to play. It also makes it something you love as a kid or you love at first listen, but then you can go deeper and deeper and just keep exploring the depths of his music John could have retired decades ago, and he'd still be one of the greatest composers of all time He never stopped As of this recording, John is ninety four years old and still scoring movies. His latest film is Disclosure Day, which is his thirtieth collaboration with Steven Spielberg Here's John describing their decades long relationship to CNN He's a close friend is family And I love him dearly