mw design -

John Williams' scores are not carbon copies like Horner's, with whole sections simply lifted out like a print from a press - they are influenced by other composers.    If you don't see the difference, then forget it. I can't help you.  You must be a Horner fan and don't mind total thievery and outright plagiarism to create the main themes of his scores.   But the fact is Williams has a style of his own that is cohesive and original even though it is very tonal and therefore has to be similar to previous composers.    Also as agitato stated - if you want to you can find pieces by any composer - INCLUDING BEETHOVEN, MOZART AND HAYDN  - that sound the same as someone else when taken out of context.  There is a total profound difference between these two and if you don't see it - we have nothing in common and nothing to discuss.   

William

You want to find Excuses now that because of a different Name its ok to use Sounds from other Composers, this reveals a different Story your telling here ! 

Another Thing is a Composer want to leave their own Footprints, Have You ever heard a Composer saying I want to be rememberd because I put my Footprints into other Footprints ?

Think about that Idea !

Im now out of this discussion, cheers

Don't go Markus. 

Bill and Anand do have a point though, Williams is such a strong creative force and such a superb craftsman that he will inevitably take ownership of any influence - a little like Stravinsky and Pergolesi or Picasso and Velasquez.

Errikos, well, well, well.......💡......😊........😈.

@William said:

I have heard people say that John Williams stole this or that, but there is a HUGE difference - his main themes were completely original and totally identifiable as his own music.  There is no classical composer who created Star Wars or Indiana Jones or Schindler's List or Superman melodies  and then John Williams just disgusied them - those are pure John Williams and his own very original style. 

@FabioA said:

Not to mention the well-known similarity with "The Planets", but also a couple of musical ideas stolen from Stravinsky. And I'm talking just about Star Wars..

I perfectly agree that composers for movies have to start from something that is already in the mind of the audience, because as a composer you have to speak with a language the listener can understand and relate to. But sometimes as Williams says, it almost becomes a carbon copy.  Personally, I would be just fine if they would avoid to award those composers with an oscar, if the soundtrack is clearly "inspired" from the classic repertoire..

No offense Fabio but that video is pretty silly. Let alone that the snippets from Star Wars and Kings row sound very different, but by this argument no one should write any new brass fanfares because they all sound similar to what was already written! I can show you 'identical' sounding brass fanfares from Mahler Bruckner and Strauss.

The first commenter of the video echoes my thoughts:

Jon Adamich3 years ago "It's interesting how people with no classical understanding will put these two together. It's the same as metallica and U2. In context of the genre they steal from each other.  Since classical is to taboo and no one listens to it, people will say Williams stole from this score. It's such bullshit. Listen to ever fanfare written. Believe me, in no more was this stolen or even at least, inspiration. "

I really don't want the be the one that accuses John Williams. I would love to see more composers like him in the new generation..
And I agree with the comment you quoted. I know what he meant. But still, I never listened to a fanfare so similar to Star Wars; there are so elements in common. And I wouldnt consider myself a person with no classical understanding, but that's just my word :)

Again, I don't want to wag against John Williams, but at the same time it was hard to read that James Horner was a plagiarist and John Williams is not. If James Horner is a plagiarist, John Williams is a plagiarist as much (or more), not to mention many other composers. I could tell you so many examples of soundtracks that share with a classical piece of music not only the melody and the harmony, but the orchestration and even the key.

What about "The Dune Sea of Tatooine" and "The Sacrifice, Introduction" of "The Rite of Spring"? If you ask me, it's pretty brilliant the idea  to use such sonority on those scenes; and I also think template musics was already more common than our thoughts. But if you ask me "did he took the idea from Stravinsky?", my answer is Yes, consciously. 

The point some of us are making here is that JW is far more than these melodies, if you sum up all the work he has done over the last 50 years. Just because he took themes and Horner also took themes from others that doesnt mean they are comparable. We shouldnt even mention them in the same sentence.

By the same logic one could argue that Horner  = Mozart as Mozart copied others and himself numerous number of times. 

You have to see the sum total of a composer's output and not single instances or melodies.

Cheers

Anand

"Williams is such a strong creative force and such a superb craftsman that he will inevitably take ownership of any influence" - mh7635

That just nails it and says what I couldn't put into words.  it is the reason for the futility of finding a section of any artist's work that is like another even though overall it is totally owned by the artist because it his style.  Star Wars, E.T., Jaws, The Fury, etc. etc. etc.  - they are not any other composer, they are John Williams. 

What is James Horner?  What is his style? There is no discernible style, just a mix of other composers' work and cliches of film music arranged skillfully.  But anyway I  am not interested in spending time trashing that music, it was just an observation after being forced to hear it watching Star Trek II - a great film afflicted by mediocre music  - exactly the reverse of the first Star Trek - a mediocre film benefitted by one of the greatest film scores ever written.

@William said:

I have heard people say that John Williams stole this or that, but there is a HUGE difference - his main themes were completely original and totally identifiable as his own music.  There is no classical composer who created Star Wars or Indiana Jones or Schindler's List or Superman melodies  and then John Williams just disgusied them - those are pure John Williams and his own very original style. 

To the person who wrote this post - I have a large collection of Erich Wolfgang Korngold including rare LP records as well as CDs.  He is my favorite film composer along with Bernard Herrmann.  I have heard and studied all of his music and love it.  His Die Tote Stadt is one of the greatest operas of the 20th century. His Sinfonietta, the scores for Robin Hood,  Elizabeth and Essex,  many others are masterpieces.  But NEVER ONCE did I think John Williams simply ripped off King's Row - which I have several recordings of - to compose Star Wars.  That is absurd.  There is a huge difference between mere tonal and motific similarities in a composer who is DELIBERATELY trying give a feel like Korngold - which Williams was doing on Star Wars in order to create that Romantic quality - and someone who really did rip off every classical composer he could get his grubby mitts on.   John Williams did not do that - he created original themes and style of his own.  

This is a very interesting thread.  I don't have too much to add except to say that when I was in college it was poplular to accuse JW of plagarism and point out all the various themes and such that he "stole".  So for a long time that shaped my opinion of him.  However some years later when I decided to think for myself I came across his concert music and realized immediately that his music is his music.  

@William I also love Korngold and Hermann.  I appreciate other movie composers of that era like Waxman and Rozsa too.   

@winknotes_282 said:

This is a very interesting thread.  I don't have too much to add except to say that when I was in college it was poplular to accuse JW of plagarism and point out all the various themes and such that he "stole".  So for a long time that shaped my opinion of him.  However some years later when I decided to think for myself I came across his concert music and realized immediately that his music is his music.  

@William I also love Korngold and Hermann.  I appreciate other movie composers of that era like Waxman and Rozsa too.   

I was thinking, its not easy to "steal" like Williams. If someone argues that JW steals from other composers, my question to that person will be, can you do the same? write a score like the Star wars or E.T. on the piano, transcribe it by hand including every detail in orchestration? Only a handlful of film composers could do that in the history of film music. Let alone his concert works which reveal complete mastery of 20th century music including Jazz...he was a jazz pianist during the 50s for cryin out loud!

I realized that people say bad things about JW either out of pure jealosy or ignorance. Usually these are either jealous academics or ignorant fans of Zimmer. (ahhh I uttered the Z word....Ill stop here!)

 Anand

Quite true agitato although I'll not comment on Hans Zimmer :)

Another thought I've had over the years but never heard anyone talk about is that any similarity or references to classical repetoire only helps ground the music in terms of its familiarity.  So if they are concious borrowings or just instinctive they always serve the picture IMO and again bring some familiarity to the music.  

I'd again encourage people to listen to his concert music (especially the violin concerto) and I think you'll realize he's truly a masterful composer.  

Rozsa and Ben-hur ! One of my favorite films and scores ever. (but not for the religious part...sorry to some folks)

btw I wonder what people here thought of the soundtrack for 'The Artist'

I thought it was an really well crafted and fun score, full of the allusions to 20s and 30s hollowood music, jazz, swing and broadway. Ludovic Bource doesnt seem to have done much after that though.

Cheers

Anand

That was a great score and the most difficult kind to do - a silent movie.  There is nowhere to hide.  

It had one problem that caused a flap - in one scene the director used Scene d'amour from Vertigo - probably not the idea of the composer - and he hadn't gotten the rights for it!  Also it was out of place.  But the actual score for the film was fantastic.  

I love Herrman's writing.  Many of his contemporaries marveled at his exceptional skill in "shaping" his composition in just the right way to carry along the film - he was masterful at this.  The irony is, no one plagerized Herrman more than Herrman.  You can hear cues from any one of his films carried over into the next film - so blatantly that I'm surprised no one ever mentions it.  Borrow as he did however, there are few who could give the right shape to the mood as well as he.

yeah a lot of motifs from one Herrmann score to another are the same.  But on the other hand he kept adding new things - like the score to Taxi Driver his last had a very good jazzy sax solo and weird percussive sections, or the score for Sisters with analog synthesizer and glockenspiel!  He was incredibly inventive with orchestration, always experimenting. 

Have you checked out Hermann's Symphony #1?  I like it very much.  It is consistent with his movie music but not the same either.