All music by John Williams apart from Fiddler on the Roof

Transcription

1 Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra Programme Notes Online Summer Concert: Pops John Williams at the Oscars Saturday 30 June pm Raiders of the Lost Ark Raiders March Harry Potter and the Philosopher s Stone Hedwig s Theme War Horse The Reunion The Witches of Eastwick Devil s Dance Jaws Main Theme Close Encounters of the Third Kind Theme E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial Flying Theme and Finale INTERVAL Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban The Knight Bus Saving Private Ryan Hymn to the Fallen Fiddler on the Roof Selections Jerry Bock, arr. John Williams Home Alone Somewhere in my Memory Catch Me If You Can Closing In Schindler s List Theme Jurassic Park Main Theme Star Wars Main Title All music by John Williams apart from Fiddler on the Roof John Williams at the Oscars From his scoring debut, the long forgotten Daddy-O, to the first of this year s two Spielberg movies, The Post, John Williams has penned the music for over 100 films, to say nothing of dozens of TV episodes and TV movies. And when I say penned, I mean

2 that quite literally John Williams still writes all his music with by hand direct onto manuscript paper. No computers, sequencers or software for John Williams. John Williams has been honoured with five Oscars, and been nominated for a total of 51 of the golden statues, making him the most Academy Award-nominated person alive. Only Walt Disney ever received more nominations (59) in the entire history of the Academy. And apart from the nominations, the music of John Williams is known and loved around the world more than that of any other film composer. In fact, by this stage, more than that of any other composer. Ever. So what better to celebrate the maestro s 60th anniversary as a film composer astonishingly, Daddy-O came out in 1958 than to enjoy a selection of some of the very best of his rich catalogue of Oscar-winning and -nominated music? John Williams has in particular long been associated with two filmmakers, Steven Spielberg and George Lucas. So it's fitting that we begin tonight's concert with music from a now classic collaboration between the two titans of modern cinema Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981). Raiders was the brainchild of George Lucas, and the entire Indiana Jones franchise it spawned has to date only had one director, Steven Spielberg. Inevitably John Williams composed the score, and the thrilling 'March' has become as much a part of the series as Indy's fedora and bullwhip. The adventures of Harry Potter eventually spanned eight feature films, with Williams providing the music for the first three. Harry Potter and The Philosopher's Stone was Harry's screen debut, from which the glittering, luminously magical Hedwig's Theme remains the franchise's touchstone melody.

3 The first Harry Potter film was, at one stage, to have been directed by Steven Spielberg. Together the pair have worked on 28 feature films, with Williams scoring every Spielberg cinema feature bar The Color Purple, Bridge of Spies and Ready Player One. So it's highly appropriate we move on to another of their collaborations now. John Williams has long been a great anglophile, with a tremendous love of English classical music. He demonstrated this first with his wonderful score for the 1969 TV film of Jane Eyre, and returned very much to the English pastoral idiom, in the vein of Vaughan Williams, for his beautiful and moving score for War Horse, from which we hear the haunting 'Reunion'. We stay with Spielberg, and his very next film, Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977). If Jaws invented the summer blockbuster, then along with a little film by George Lucas (we ll get to it after the interval), CE3K laid the template for future blockbusters as science fiction spectaculars. Music was again integral to the film, here becoming the means of communication between humanity and the visiting aliens. Indeed, so key was Williams score that the composer wrote and recorded the music for the entire finale first and then Spielberg edited his images to the score, rather than the traditional other way around. Five years later Spielberg and Williams delivered what might be considered a sort of unofficial sequel to Close Encounters. E.T. was warmer, more family friendly, but otherwise had much in common with the earlier picture. It also had a couple of things in common with Jaws. It became the biggest hit of all time (surpassing Jaws and Star Wars at the box office), and it was the second time a Williams / Spielberg collaboration walked away with an Oscar for best original score. Appropriate then that we end the first half of tonight s concert with the glorious, soaring Flying Theme from E.T, leading into the epic, rousing Finale from that picture. We begin our second half this evening with a ride on The Knight

4 Bus, a crazy, frenetic, menacing piece of orchestral jazz from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. The piece harks back to the jazz scores Williams wrote in the 1960s, with just a hint of the Cantina Band music from Star Wars. It s a world away from the next Spielberg / Williams collaboration we visit, the gruelling World War Two drama Saving Private Ryan. This time it was Spielberg who took the Oscar home, but Williams left us the slowly building, emotionally devastating closing music, Hymn to the Fallen. John Williams won his first Oscar for the 1971 musical Fiddler on the Roof, not for his scoring, but for adapting the original stage score by Jerry Bock. Tonight we hear selections from the score, Williams elegant, imaginative orchestrations illustrating another facet of his seemingly endless musical talents. Among all the science fiction and fantasy blockbusters and serious dramas, it s easy to overlook that Williams scored the first two Home Alone movies. His work on these movies has much of the same warmth, humour, heart and whimsy he brought to Spielberg s Hook during the same early 90s period. Tonight s selection, Somewhere in My Memory, might even be seen as an ancestor of Hedwig s Theme. Catch Me If You Can (2002) found Williams scoring a Spielberg drama set very much in the sort of 1960s world in which he first found success as a film composer. Having lived through the era, his sophisticated orchestral jazz perfectly captures an age when air travel was still a glamorous pleasure. The cue we will hear tonight, Closing In, perfectly essays the edgy world of conman Frank Abagnale. More Spielberg, and another Oscar on Mr Williams mantelpiece, this time for Schindler s List. The Holocaust drama is harrowing and emotionally devastating, the more so for the director s atypically clinical, unflinching approach to the darkest aspects of life. It was left to Williams to bring the emotion, and finally a

5 sense of catharsis, through his sombre, spine-chillingly beautiful music. His Main Theme, once heard, haunts the memory forever. Now the odd one out in tonight s programme. Don t tell anyone, but Williams didn t get so much as a nomination for Jurassic Park. Yet his theme is such a classic we don t think anyone will mind if we play it anyway. With his lovely, enchanting main theme Williams summons a musical sense of wonder as dinosaurs once more roam the earth, perhaps surprisingly offering no hint of the terrors to come. We end tonight with, what else, Star Wars. Years before it was A New Hope, a little space opera became the biggest hit of all time, pushing Jaws off the top box office spot. Williams bagged another Oscar, and the rest is history. Of course, JW has gone on to score seven more films in the Star Wars saga, with the final part of the originally planned trilogy of trilogies blasting in cinemas next year. An ever expanding musical tapestry spanning countless themes over 40 years, there s never been an achievement that comes even close in all of cinema or film music history. And it all began with the theme we are about to hear, itself an exhilarating homage to such great Erich Wolfgang Korngold swashbuckling adventure scores as The Sea Hawk and The Adventures of Robin Hood. It is simply the incomparable Star Wars. Programme notes by Gary Dalkin 2018