Williams's First List

by Bill Snedden

Johnny Williams is "The Beethoven of our age," a composer who is "as prolific as Mozart." His career started "a long time ago..." in 1956, during the final golden days of Hollywood, where he served a thorough and rewarding musical apprenticeship with a host of legendary composers, including Franz Waxman, Dimitri Tiomkin, Bernard Herrmann and the Newmans (first Alfred, later Lionel and Emil). He has received more Academy Award nominations for the category of Best Original Score than any other composer in film history. To date there are some sixteen scores for Steven Spielberg which makes their ongoing partnership the longest standing in the film music world, surpassing that of Hitchcock and Herrmann.

Maestro Williams has an almost continuously busy diary through to his 70th birthday in 2002 with concert schedules for the Boston Pops as Conductor Laureate, teaching seminars at Tanglewood, and more film music output in the pipeline: Angela's Ashes for director Alan Parker, Chris Columbus' next film, The Bicentennial Man and scores for two more Steven Spielberg projects, Minority Report and Memoirs of a Geisha. Here's hoping he decides to take a well earned sabbatical soon to sit down and compose his biography. For the sake of the musicians he has worked with, as well as for the concert and film going audiences around the world, we shall applaud John Williams retelling his remarkable life.

Whether you are a novice or a film composer guru, here is a list of Williams's career firsts to highlight and test your knowledge of his background and lifetime achievements:

First musical instrument

Starts playing Piano at age 7 (later learns to play several other instruments including trombone, trumpet and clarinet)

First music teacher

Studies orchestration with pianist-arranger Bobby van Epps at Los Angeles City College, 1950

First film job in Hollywood

Studio pianist with Morris Stoloff's Columbia Pictures Studio Symphony Orchestra on Sweet Smell of Success, circa 1956

First solo album

The John Towner Touch, Kapp records, 1957

First film score

Daddy-O, Allied International Pictures, 1958

First TV job

Composed background score for 90 minute TV drama anthology Playhouse 90, CBS, 1959

First TV appearance

In Johnny Staccato, NBC, 1959 (John Williams appeared as part of a jazz quintet [led by Pete Candoli] in a Greenwich Village club; music by Elmer Bernstein)

First film score composed and conducted by Williams

Because They're Young, Columbia Pictures, 1960

First film score to have a soundtrack album

Diamond Head, Columbia Pictures, 1963

First film sequel

Not Jaws 2, but Gidget Goes to Rome, Columbia Pictures, 1963 (Williams worked as an orchestrator on the first Gidget film)

First "classical" composition

Prelude and Fugue scored for wind instruments and percussion, 1965 (dedicated to pianist Claude Thornhill whom Williams knew as a child; he commenced writing a clarinet sonata at the age of 16 years and, as a 19 year old, a woodwind quintet; a piano sonata was also left unfinished)

First Symphony

Dedicated to Andre Previn and premiered by the Houston Symphony Orchestra and chorus, 1968 (Bernard Herrmann encouraged Williams to write serious music with the famous words "Who's stopping you?")

First Emmy

TV movie Heidi, CBS/Omnibus, 1968

First Oscar

Fiddler on the Roof, United Artists, 1971 (Director of Music)

First film for Steven Spielberg

The Sugarland Express, Universal Pictures, 1974

First Grammy

Jaws, Universal Pictures, 1975

First (and last) Stage Musical

Thomas and the King (lyrics by James Harbert) premiered 16 October 1975 at Her Majesty's Theatre, London

First London Symphony recording

Star Wars (recorded at Anvil Studios, Denham, England) March 1977. (He actually conducted members of the LSO as early as 1968 for Goodybye, Mr. Chips, but this was the first one where the LSO was billed as the LSO.)

First Boston Pops album

Pops in Space, Philips (CD: Philips 412 884-2 nla), 1980

First concert with the Boston Symphony Orchestra

Tanglewood, August 28, 1993 (although Maestro of the Boston Pops from 1980, thirteen years went by before making his conducting debut with the BSO; Williams retired from the BPO in 1993 and is now their Conductor Laureate)

First global TV broadcast

Satellite Celebration, composed for a Seiji Ozawa New Year concert in 1995 in which soloists and choirs on several continents combined via satellite with an orchestra in Japan in a celebratory hymn

First Film Score recorded by the Boston Symphony Orchestra

Schindler's List, 1993 (portions were also recorded in Los Angeles).

First prequel

The Phantom Menace, 20th Century Fox, 1999 (no prizes for this one)

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