Herrmann and Williams in Harmony

or: "Who's stopping ya?"

by William Snedden

American film composers Bernard Herrmann and John Williams have much in common from a career development perspective, although they were born practically a generation apart (Herrmann June 29, 1911, Williams February 8, 1932). They are New Yorkers (Herrmann from the East Side, Williams from Flushing, Long Island) and both studied at the Juilliard School of Music. It would not be fair to stretch this point about their New York background and education too far, as Herrmann dropped out of school in 1932. According to his contemporary Jerome Moross (composer of The Big Country) they were "tossed out" because of a dislike of their modern compositions. On the other hand, Williams studied piano technique with Madame Rosina Lhevinne at Juilliard, who accepted him as a student aged 22. "The best piano playing I ever did in my life was at my audition for her. I remember I played a Bach Prelude and Fugue, and she stopped me and asked what was going on. I said it was 'like a canon.' 'Vy do you say it is like a canon,' she said in her Russian accent, 'ven it is a canon?'"1

Williams first encountered Herrmann at Twentieth Century Fox whilst working under the guiding hand of Alfred Newman. "Benny was encouraging; he came to some of my recording sessions. He was never flattering, but he encouraged me. In the early sixties I wanted to write a symphony. One day at lunch I complained to Benny about wanting to write some music other than film music. He answered, "Who's stopping ya?" His answer was so blatant and direct - and right - that I went home and spent the requisite four or five months writing this piece."2

Another important shared connection is the way in which they learned their craft. Herrmann spent the early part of his career (1934-39) as a conductor, arranger and programmer for the Columbia Broadcasting System.3 He wrote innovative musical backgrounds to poetry readings (In the Modern Manner: Keat's "La Belle Dame Sans Merci"), dramas and experimental broadcasts (The Columbia Workshop, The Mercury Theater on the Air). On the other hand Williams' apprenticeship was served composing for television. During the so-called 'golden' period, from 1958 to 1964, he was under contract to NBC's Revue Television productions: "The shows I was assigned to were the hardest shows, the hour shows, which meant I had to write about twenty to twenty-five minutes of music a week, score it, and record it. It was a tremendous learning opportunity for me. What I wrote may not have been good - it probably wasn't; the main idea was to get it done, and I got it done. A lot of good people came out of that world."1 He played and wrote for many genres and in many styles - jazz (M Squad, Johnny Staccato, Peter Gunn), sitcoms (Bachelor Father, The Tammy Grimes Show), westerns (Wagon Train, The Wide Country, The Virginian) and, of course, Sci-Fi (Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Lost in Space, Time Tunnel, Land of the Giants).

The third and, perhaps, most important common denominator between these two exceptional composers is that their respective film careers were launched by an early association with young and prodigiously talented film makers. In Herrmann's case, his debut for Orson Welles' Citizen Kane (1941) and for Williams his first collaboration with Steven Spielberg on Sugarland Express (1974). Both composers have also benefited greatly from long term film partnerships with 'best in class' directors (Herrmann and Hitchcock, Williams and the duo of Spielberg & Lucas)4.

Williams was influenced in more ways than one by Herrmann. It is fascinating to find so many similarities and shared links between them as professional musicians which I will attempt to illustrate below by example. I hope some of these connections (or coincidences?) don't appear a little too far fetched:

1. Herrmann wanted above all to be a full time symphony conductor. John Williams succeeded in this regard by joining the Boston Pops Orchestra following the death in 1979 of their long standing conductor Arthur Fielder. Herrmann arranged many concert suites from his film scores. Williams also follows this 'Double Identity' practice. 5

2. Herrmann was an anglophile. John Williams has maintained a convivial connection with England through a long term working relationship with the London Symphony Orchestra and a close association with the Royal Academy of Music. Both composers have recorded film scores with the LSO, e.g. The Man Who Knew Too Much (Herrmann appears in a sequence conducting Arthur Benjamin's Strom Clouds canata) and Star Wars (Williams).

3. Herrmann and Williams film assignments reveal many common threads, themes and similar forms of composition. For example:

On Charlotte Bronte:

Herrmann scored Jane Eyre (1943) and Williams likewise for a TV film production in 1971.

On Flying Saucers and Aliens

Williams' Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) may be compared with Herrmann's pioneering electronic score for The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951).

On the Sea and Monsters from the Deep

Reverberant harp strings characterise Williams' Jaws 2 score (1980) and Herrmann's Beneath the Twelve Mile Reef (1953).6

On War

The outbreak of war in 1939 inspired Herrmann to compose a concert piece entitled "For the Fallen". Williams composed his choral "Hymn for the Fallen" for Spileberg's D-Day epic Saving Private Ryan (1998).

4. Herrmann composed for Rod Serling's classic series The Twilight Zone and Williams for the present-day TV equivalent, Spielberg's Amazing Stories.

5. Herrmann collaborated on the Charles Schneer/Ray Harryhausen fantasy films (Jason and the Argonauts, etc.) whilst Williams is associated with films such as Jurassic Park and The Phantom Menace which employ computer graphics technology, the modern-day equivalent of Harryhausen's pioneering stop motion technique.

And a final observation to reinforce the premise of this article:

Williams latest film assignment is for Ronald Emmerlich's The Patriot set during the American Revolution and starring Mel Gibson. On the same theme, Herrmann scored Williamsburg: The Story of a Patriot which charts a colonial family's support for the revolutionary movement. (This VistaVision film ran continuously in Williamsburg for over 38 years until 1994.) Steven Smith describes the score as containing "some of Herrmann's loveliest music: a spirited Georgian dance for the main title; singing, elegant melodies for strings and woodwind soli; and finally, a set of rousing, canonic variations on "Yankee Doodle" as America moves towards war."2 It will be interesting to see what style of music Williams will summon up from his mind and if he will emulate his great colleague and mentor.

1. Where is John Williams Coming From?, Interview by Richard Dyer, Boston Globe Sunday Magazine, June 29, 1980.

2. Steven C. Smith, A Heart at Fire's Center: The Life and Music of Bernard Herrmann, University of California Press, 1991.

3. It should be noted that Williams' father (John Sr.) worked as a percussionist in the CBS Radio Orchestra during the late thirties. However, it is not documented whether he knew or played directly under Benny Herrmann at this time.

4. Ten years after Herrmann's infamous break-up with Hitchcock over Torn Curtain, Williams was given the opportunity to collaborate with the Master on Family Plot (1976): "I wasn't excited about that particular picture, but I wanted to work with Hitchcock, and it turned out to be his last film. He didn't want any thick, heavy scoring. 'Just remember this,' he said to me, 'murder can be fun.'"

5. A reference to the title of Miklos Rozsa's biography and his dual identity roles of film composer and concert music composer.

6. See Christopher Palmer, The Composer in Hollywood, Marion Boyars, 1993.

7. Rod Serling originally worked as a screen writer for the Playhouse 90 series. By coincidence, Williams also started his career in television by scoring for this 90 minute drama anthology which aired between 1956 and 1961.

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