24-25 Program Book - Flipbook - Page 24
Main Title from Star Wars (1977)
JOHN TOWNER WILLIAMS
(b. February 8, 1932)
John Williams is an American composer and
conductor. In a career that has spanned seven
decades, he has composed some of the most
popular, recognizable, and critically acclaimed
film scores in cinema history. He has a distinct
sound that mixes romanticism, impressionism,
and atonal music with complex orchestration.
He is best known for his collaborations with
Steven Spielberg and George Lucas and has
received numerous accolades, including 26
Grammy Awards, five Academy Awards, seven
BAFTA Awards, three Emmy Awards, and four
Golden Globe Awards. With 54 Academy Award
nominations, he is the second-most nominated
person, after Walt Disney, and is the oldest
Oscar nominee in any category, at 91 years old.
Williams freely acknowledges his stylistic debt to various 20th-century concert
composers, among them Edward Elgar, and perpetuates the traditions of filmscoring developed by such composers as Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Bernard
Herrmann, Alfred Newman, and others. Though he draws on many historical
and contemporary styles, Williams’s most familiar style is called Neo-Romantic,
harkening back to orchestral music of the 19th century. Williams’s score for Star
Wars has been described as “Wagnerian” as it makes use of the leitmotif, a musical
phrase associated with a place, character or idea, though Williams credits other
Hollywood composers more than Richard Wagner as influencing the film score.
The Main Title for Star Wars features the main musical theme for the movie
franchise which also serves as the primary leitmotif for Luke Skywalker. The 1977
London Symphony Orchestra recording, conducted by Williams himself, peaked
at number ten on the US Billboard Hot 100 and number thirteen in Canada RPM
Top Singles. More than any of his contemporaries Williams has developed the
ability to express the dramatic essence of a film in memorable musical ideas;
likewise, he is able to shape each score to build climaxes that mirror a particular
narrative structure.
24 CLASSICAL SERIES STAR WARS AND THE PLANETS
