Congratulations and thank you to all the exceptional guests and panellists who participated in this. It was wonderful and will now live on as a historical document for future students of Williams and Goldsmith to discover.
I could tell that some of your guests were just getting warmed up to let loose with more of those magical behind-the-music anecdotes...and it was done.
To be honest I also had a lot more questions written down to prompt conversation! I wanted in particular to follow the thread of "Jerry the modernist vs. John the populist" that David Newman brought up. I wanted to push back on it a bit, and had written this in prep (I probably would have cut it down):
Conductor Michael Tilson Thomas put out a pair of orchestral albums some years back entitled “Copland the Populist” and “Copland the Modernist”. Both Jerry Goldsmith and John Williams have in their own ways embraced these two extremes compositionally (for example there is a wide chasm between Jerry’s scores for say Rudy and Planet of the Apes, and plenty of examples at various points in between). Some might make the case that Goldsmith started out as more the modernist while Williams was more the populist, yet I would challenge them to explore the latter’s score for Robert Altman’s Images, which includes passages which may be weirder than the anything to even come out of Goldsmith’s pen! Williams in much of his concert music seems to enjoy experimenting with and exploring more modern ideas than he does in his typical film score, to the point that some fans of his film music ignore the concert works because they sound too different and alien to them. I want to invite all three of our composer/conductor guests today -- Leonard, Leanna, and Dave -- to weigh in on this musical dichotomy in respect to both composers.
That was great. Congrats to the organisers above all, and of course to the participants. I particularly liked listening to Leonard Slatkin and to Mike Lang. They were just really getting going towards the end. These little gems such as Lang's story about how Jerry Goldsmith introduced him to people ("This is Mike Lang. He used to play with Don Ellis.") helped make the event special. The only dodgy moments were due to the poor matte work around Yavar's head, which made him look like he wasn't really in that nice office at all.
Speaking of which, yes, it would have been good to delve deeper into the questions which Yavar had prepared but didn't have the chance to ask. By the way, I've just come across an 8-part interview on YouTube with John Williams from 1983 ("John Williams NPR Interview"), uploaded just three days ago by Frank Lehman, in which Williams has a lengthy chat with Robert Lurtsema on his radio programme "Morning Pro Musica". I haven't had time to listen to much yet, but it sounds promising. I'm guessing that this interview is common knowledge to the real JW scholars out there, but I thought I'd point it out just in case.
Speaking of which, yes, it would have been good to delve deeper into the questions which Yavar had prepared but didn't have the chance to ask. By the way, I've just come across an 8-part interview on YouTube with John Williams from 1983 ("John Williams NPR Interview"), uploaded just three days ago by Frank Lehman, in which Williams has a lengthy chat with Robert Lurtsema on his radio programme "Morning Pro Musica". I haven't had time to listen to much yet, but it sounds promising. I'm guessing that this interview is common knowledge to the real JW scholars out there, but I thought I'd point it out just in case.
Actually, it was new to me too, when Frank uploaded it a few days ago. He posted about it on JWFAN, and I listened shortly thereafter. It's a good one, although there isn't much in terms of new information for us hardcore Williams nuts.
To be honest I also had a lot more questions written down to prompt conversation! I wanted in particular to follow the thread of "Jerry the modernist vs. John the populist" that David Newman brought up. I wanted to push back on it a bit, and had written this in prep (I probably would have cut it down):
Conductor Michael Tilson Thomas put out a pair of orchestral albums some years back entitled “Copland the Populist” and “Copland the Modernist”. Both Jerry Goldsmith and John Williams have in their own ways embraced these two extremes compositionally (for example there is a wide chasm between Jerry’s scores for say Rudy and Planet of the Apes, and plenty of examples at various points in between). Some might make the case that Goldsmith started out as more the modernist while Williams was more the populist, yet I would challenge them to explore the latter’s score for Robert Altman’s Images, which includes passages which may be weirder than the anything to even come out of Goldsmith’s pen! Williams in much of his concert music seems to enjoy experimenting with and exploring more modern ideas than he does in his typical film score, to the point that some fans of his film music ignore the concert works because they sound too different and alien to them. I want to invite all three of our composer/conductor guests today -- Leonard, Leanna, and Dave -- to weigh in on this musical dichotomy in respect to both composers.
Yavar
Yavar, again thanks to all for the program. you might want to check out Sleepers and see what you think of it
I'm asking about it. Glad you mentioned it! That whole channel is gone or down. It was for the Ipswitch Film Theatre, which got renamed last year, so I wonder if it's being recreated or something.
