Saturday, August 3, 2024
8:00 PM
From Hollywood’s Golden Age to John Williams’s iconic scores, Film Night with the Boston Pops returns to Tanglewood with a special celebration of Henry Mancini’s 100th birthday, all led by conductors Ken-David Masur and David Newman. To hear the broadcast on demand, use the audio player above.
Boston Pops Orchestra
Ken-David Masur and David Newman, conductors
John Williams’ Film Night
KORNGOLD Suite from The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex
NORTH Forest Meeting and March from Spartacus
John WILLIAMS Theme from Seven Years in Tibet (Oliver Aldort, cello)
MANCINI Theme from The Pink Panther; March from The Great Waldo Pepper; "Moon River" from Breakfast at Tiffany's
John WILLIAMS "The Duel" from The Adventures of Tintin
BERNSTEIN Suite from On the Waterfront
John WILLIAMS Superman March
John WILLIAMS Celebrating NBC: Olympic Fanfare and Theme; Meet the Press; The Mission Theme (NBC Nightly News); Wide Receiver (Sunday Night Football)
RAKSIN Theme from Laura (Lucia Lin, violin)
John WILLIAMS Three selections from Star Wars: March of the Resistance; Luke and Leia; Throne Room and Finale
This broadcast is no longer available on demand.
In an interview with Brian McCreath from 2016, John Williams discusses what led him to become a composer, why conducting The Boston Pops is so special, and why he believes Star Wars resonates so profoundly with humanity. Listen with the audio player above, and follow the transcript below.
TRANSCRIPT (Note: The Star Wars film discussed here is Star Wars: The Force Awakens, from 2015.):
Brian McCreath I'm Brian McCreath at Symphony Hall. I'm with John Williams, and it is a great pleasure to have the chance to speak with you, John. I've enjoyed the Film Night concerts for years and of course all of the films you've scored. So thank you for taking a few minutes with me.
John Williams Very happy to be with you. Thank you for having me.
Brian McCreath So the Film Night concerts that we've enjoyed over the years have always been interesting because my little peeks back here, backstage with the Pops indicate that you really spend a lot of time tweaking those programs. You want to come up with the right kind of program every year. This year, there is a very obvious choice to focus on, which is Star Wars. But tell me how you, in general, approach a Film Night concert, and what it is you want to accomplish with those concerts.
John Williams The Film Night concert programing is really not dissimilar to the basic principles, I suppose, of making a good menu: an entrée and a something to... an antipasto, if you like, or a first course, and even some people remember the expression "spoom." The spoom was a little [Williams chuckles] mouth refresher of sherbet-like thing between the soup course and the entrée and so on.
There are elements of lengths to be considered, relative length from piece to piece and from fast, slow, to loud and soft, and so on. And then contexts and difficulty of, well, the playing, but listening, are all things that we want to try to measure out to get a digestible two hours of music. I mean, basically it's that simple. It's just tasting it and pacing it. And in the case of film, there was a context to all of the films that concert music possibly doesn't have unless it's programmatic music: "Pictures at an Exhibition," if you like, or something of the sort. People will remember Superman, or the old timers will remember Laura, and the youngsters will remember something else. And so there are periods of film that we can assemble as a group or disassemble and then do something very contemporary, something maybe done in the 1930s. So it's puzzle-making, it's menu-making, and it's certainly fun to do. [McCreath laughs]
Brian McCreath I do have that sense, yeah. And it is very fun, I think, for everyone involved, that your program this year focuses on your half of the program, on the new Star Wars music. I'm thrilled that that's the case. But I do wonder, with the original Star Wars score, if there was a particular moment when you realized this was going to be beyond a great score for a really good film or a great film, even. This music is really culturally relevant. This is a phenomenon. Was there a moment when you kind of realized that it had taken that sort of status?
John Williams I don't think I could say it was a moment. I can tell you that when we first worked on the very first film with George Lucas, I don't think any of us, including George himself, would have expected that the film would have the impact and the reach that it's had. I know for certain that he did not. I think he had ideas of doing further films in his mind, but we didn't know that. We thought it was a one-off film, and it seemed to be good and I did what I could with the music. And like dozens of other films I have done, I thought, "Well, that's great, I'll go out and play for a few weeks and then move on to the next film." But of course we all know that it touched something across... even cultures, I suppose.
You could start with this idea of The Force and of good and evil and heroes and heroines and so on. All classic stuff, but wrapped in a quasi and original mythology where George created these fantastic characters of Yoda and Darth Vader. And so then it began to seem to be Grecian, in a way, I mean mythic. And we began to feel that we recognized the myths in some kind of long lost, atavistic communal memory, if you like. And it touched the corners of our mystic side. Somebody has written, you know, that human beings need science. And there's science in this mysticism. And the thing about being human is the fact that we need both. And I think Star Wars somehow touches on both levels: the idea of scientific imagination, of what could be practically done in the future, combined with mysticism and mythology of a kind of originality, that took the audience, almost unconsciously, to a place that they didn't expect to go.
Brian McCreath And the music is such an important part of that. I want to ask you about a very specific moment in the new score that you've written, and it comes—and I only ask it as a way of opening up maybe other comments that have come to you; I'm interested in your reaction—there's a moment when Rey refuses to sell BB-8 when she could have and gotten more food in her reality. And when BB-8 comes on screen again and Rey looks at BB-8, there's a moment in the score that, uncontrollably in my mind, brought up the Adagietto from Mahler['s Symphony No.] Five. [Williams chuckles] And it may not have been intentional at all, but something about it instantly touched a nerve. And I wonder, when people say things like that, when they hear things in your scores that you may or may not have intended, how that strikes you and what it means to you.
John Williams I'll have to go listen to Mahler—did you say Five or Four?
Brian McCreath The Adagietto from Five. And that's why it struck me because, you know, the love letter to Alma [Mahler], right? And then Rey looks at BB-8 and there's an affection there, and it really touched me. But apparently that's not what [McCreath laughs] that wasn't really part of what you were planning on.
John Williams Certainly not. But, any comparison to me and that great master would be probably misplaced. But we may have stumbled on a note or two in sequence that we might have shared. That was a very flattering idea.
There's a scene when Rey and BB-8 come together. It was actually a very simple little scene, but it was difficult musically. We did it two or three times, but he wants to go with her, and she doesn't want him to come. And they actually bond and walk away in a long shot that we tried several different ways of approaching it, from lighter to darker to more... whatever. Musically, it's a lovely scene.
I have the biggest crush on Daisy Ridley, I can tell you. [McCreath laughs] I've been saying to people, you know, whether or not I could want to do the next film, having done about seven, I simply don't want anybody else to write music for Daisy, because I just love that she commanded the screen for two hours. Of course, Harrison did a brilliant job also. But I'm so anxious to see what she does next.
She came to our recording session. I've been watching on the screen for months and months, and she visited us in a very plain little dress and she sat by the podium, and I had no idea who she was. I didn't recognize her! So I finally said to one of the engineers, "Who is that girl sitting there?" He said, "Well, that's Daisy!" [Williams and McCreath chuckle] I said, "Oh my god!" I went over, "Daisy, have you ever been to a recording session before?" She said, "Oh no, I've never seen anything like this. It's wonderful! The orchestra's brilliant," and so on. And she just sat there very quietly and very sweetly. Very simple, unspoiled. With an unspoiled freshness that has captivated everyone that's seen her, I think.
Brian McCreath Is this a common experience, that actors that you interact—I don't know what it's like to go through the process of scoring the film and what the production process is, but how often do you have time with the actors or on set or anything like that? Of course, you spend a lot of time with the director.
John Williams Oh, very little. The actors are long gone and doing other pictures by the time we get to the music. No, we don't see them or know them very much, but in this case it was very nice that they came to visit. They occasionally do. I remember Anthony Hopkins came and visited us several times. I've forgotten what film, but he was very interested in film music, and he came even with his mother at one time, sat there for hours and hours, take after take of whatever scene it was. I said to him, "Anthony, you aren't bored?" "No, no, I love this. I want to find out how it's done," and so on. That's unusual. It's rare.
Brian McCreath I can't imagine how many requests you get to score movies, but I do wonder sometimes, has there ever been a film that you passed on or didn't have the chance to do because you were too busy, and you looked back and thought, "I really, really wish I had had a chance to do that film"?
John Williams Well, I don't remember passing on any film I wish I could have done, but I've seen many, many which I dearly wish I would have had the opportunity to do. Absolutely.
Brian McCreath You, in your early days, worked with people like Bernard Herrmann and Alfred Newman, and what were those days like for you in learning this craft? And was there a moment in working with them when your path became clear? "This is really what I want to do." I know you had many options when you were a young man.
John Williams Well, my initial introduction to all this movie scoring came from my father, who worked in the studio orchestras, and I would casually go to visit. But, although I tried to write music as a teenager, write pieces and learn orchestration, I had no idea that I would do that as a profession. I wanted to be a pianist, and my first work in the studios was in the orchestra, working with many people, two you mentioned and many others. Herrmann and Alfred Newman.
The process really was even boring to talk about with your audience, [McCreath chuckles] but I went from playing the piano to working for these older colleagues as an orchestrator. They would say to me, "Can you do this or that scene for next Tuesday?" I said ,"For sure," with the temerity of youth, you know. I apparently did all right and began to write more than I was playing. And I began to write scores for television shows which was very demanding, as they had, in those days, the hour shows, which is every week, Kraft [Television] Theater and Alcoa [Theatre] and so on. Bob Hope [Presents the] Chrysler Theater I did for two years, 20 or 25 minutes for the orchestra each week. So I was writing like mad. But I can't ever tell you directly that I had the ambition to become a film composer. I really didn't, it was just a matter of good fortune, being in the right place at the right time, and having opportunities that I was able to deal with when they came along.
Brian McCreath There was an interesting story that I heard recently about Lena Horne, and it was from the 1940s, and she was asked to sing in a film, Stormy Weather, which at that time was associated with Ethel Waters. And she was very timid, which, of what I know about Lena Horne, is a rare occurrence. But, it was Cab Calloway who took her aside and said, "You've got to do this. You've got to think of someone who died [Williams laughs] and sing that song because you've got to deliver on this." And it's such an important moment for any artist, anyone pursuing a craft to have that sort of mentorship and have someone say, "No, here, here's where you need to go." Was there anyone like that for you, that took you at a pivotal moment and helped you get through an obstacle?
John Williams I don't think so. I think immediately of my father, to whom nothing that I ever did was quite good enough, so that [McCreath and Williams laugh] that was enough of a push to develop a psychology which I have to this day, that I look at what I've done, and I always feel that it might be better and try to do it better the next time. I have had a lot of encouragement from people that your audiences will not know, but a man named "Sandy" Courage, who was an orchestrator at MGM and introduced me to Adolph Deutsch, who they also will not remember, I don't think. But Adolph Deutsch, I believe, speaking of Stormy Weather, he might have done some of the original orchestrations for the show, and I first worked for Adolph as a pianist for Funny Face, I think in 1957 or 1958 at Paramount. And that was a result of the fact that "Sandy" Courage recommended me to Deutsch, and I played on that film, and Some Like It Hot and The Apartment and others that he did, and he became a friend, he and his wife and my late wife. [There were] many people like that: Stanley Wilson at Universal Studios is another one, Morris Stoloff at Columbia, our music director who I worked with for quite a while, David Raksin, my goodness, [McCreath chuckles] on and on.
I had a lot of fun too and inspiration, I think, and learning from younger—in some cases, colleagues who were my own age, principally Jerry Goldsmith, who was a fabulous composer. And we worked together and we were close friends and about the same in age. I think Jerry was a year or two older than I. And it was a lively community group, really, of young people at the intersection of the vast studio system of the '30s and '40s and the now lack of it altogether was television in between. Television now, of course, is all packaged and synthesized. Most of the music is done the hour after they need it. But when the studios were breaking up and I was beginning to work as a composer, the musicians union had a wonderful contract for the television producers: if you had an hour show like Alcoa Theatre, it had to be recorded every week with a live orchestra. The studios were signatories to this, and so there was endless opportunity for younger people. And a lot of the older, more senior people who were losing their studio contracts found work writing television shows. So Goldsmith and I and a few others were caught right in the middle of this change from one medium to another, which produced, if not a lot of money, a lot of opportunity.
Brian McCreath Well, let's talk a little about The Pops and your decision to come here when you did in 1980. You had not been a regular conductor other than in the studios at the time, as I understand it. What was behind your thinking of coming here to Boston to succeed Arthur Fiedler?
John Williams It's really hard to tell. I was asking my wife about that the other night. Why do you think we did that? [McCreath laughs] I can remember when the opportunity came. I conducted here in '78 and '79 when Mr. Fiedler was still alive, having been encouraged to conduct by Ernest Fleischmann, famous director of the London Symphony and other great ensembles. He was the director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and he said, "John, you must conduct, and Zubin wants you to conduct." And so I did a few concerts and... Arthur Fiedler had, I think on two occasions, came to LA and was ill and couldn't conduct his Hollywood Bowl concerts. And Ernest Fleischmann rang me up because every other conductor would have been busy and said, "John, can you come tomorrow night and do Arthur's program, which is Gershwin, this, that, and the other thing?" And I said, "Well, I'll do it if you have nobody else to do it." You would have thought he'd use the assistant conductor. So I went along and somehow I was invited here, and I thought, "Well, The Boston Pops are fantastic. I have to. What a thrill to go." And my mother, who was born in Boston, I brought her here to the hall, and she was so thrilled to have her son come to Symphony Hall and conduct the orchestra. And I thought, of course, I'd never come back again. It was a one off thing.
But I had a good time. And the orchestra asked me back the following year and I came, still with no intention ever of having a career as a conductor, which I didn't then and I don't know. [McCreath chuckles] And then when Mr. Fiedler passed on, they asked if I would come. And I thought, "Well, I've been working for 20, 25 years in the "cloister" of the music studio or composing room. It may be kind of fun to perform live music before a live audience, see what happens, what came on, and try that for a year or two."
And what has happened is now we're 34, 35, or 36 years later. Last year was the only year, after all the time that I wasn't [there]—I had some back problems last year but it's fine now. So this is my 35th year coming to Boston. By now it's like a family. I know the players. I know their children. I know their grandchildren. I mean, it's been like a second family.
And the other great lure from day one has been Tanglewood, which is the most beautiful, bucolic, sylvan heaven anybody can imagine. And going out there to conduct one or two nights a year, and then I found that I could stay, and found that I could do my film work out there, and have a brilliant summer with music all around and a break from California... Since 1980, succeeding Mr. Fiedler, it has just become a part of my life.
Brian McCreath And I'll tell you that [former BSO President and CEO] Mark Volpe does not talk about Tanglewood without mentioning John Williams as being part of the landscape there. And I did wonder what it is that Tanglewood does for you. What kinds of things do you do? Do you literally bring out the specific projects you're working on to spend time working on those at Tanglewood?
John Williams Oh, I've written a lot of music out there at Tanglewood: the first two Harry Potters, I think, a cello concerto for Yo-Yo, and so many other things. I think I wrote the NBC... [Williams chuckles] The NFL football team I remember doing out there. We had a lot of projects in the summers, in the past many years. Too many to remember now.
Brian McCreath Yeah, yeah. Well, thank you so much for spending some time with me, John Williams. It's been a real pleasure to talk with you.
John Williams Thank you very much.