Even those who might not immediately have recognised the name of John Williams, who turned 90 this week, will know his work – and many of these won’t just know it, but respond viscerally to it, as we do to childhood smells, or the pop songs of our teenage years. Over a 64-year career he has composed orchestral music for, among many other things, the Star Wars films, Superman, the first three Harry Potter films, Home Alone and 28 of Steven Spielberg’s movies, including Jaws, Jurassic Park and ET. Given the global and generational reach of these movies, Williams has a fair claim to have been heard by – and moved – many millions of people on this planet.
The use of orchestral scores harks back to the 1930s and has, despite the vast range of what is aurally possible in 2022, never gone away. Some people look down on such compositions – perhaps because the work can be so emotion-on-sleeve; so partial to a recognisable tune; so unpreciously productive; and so extremely successful. But Williams’s music, for instance, earns serious respect from the musicians who play it, who understand both the virtuosity it demands, and the difficulty of creating seemingly simple but unforgettable leitmotifs. Music written for the movies, such as William Walton’s score for Laurence Olivier’s Henry V, or Vaughan Williams’s for Scott of the Antarctic (which became his Symphony No 7, Sinfonia Antartica), or Philip Glass’s for Koyaanisqatsi, is played in concert for its own sake. There is a strong argument, too, that the movie industry has been an important patron of both orchestras and original orchestral music over the last century.
