No, Williams haters are usually musically ignorant. And I don't mean it as a slur, merely that the musicality of Williams' scores is generally pretty much beyond repproach. In technical terms. He's up there with Howard Shore as one of finest orchestrators (along with cohort Ken Wannberg) of modern musical film scoring (and we are talking film scoring not modern classical or musique concrete which I realise are far more daring and radical than any regular tunesmith would sensibly be)
Of course he's also an immense popularist, something aesthetes are loath to give good grace to, because it goes against their highbrow worldview (and yes, I realise I'm saying this as an enormously wanky MB poster, but one who also revels as much in popular and trash art and not for sake of appearance or to look "cool")
The fact is, you won't find many (including Bregovich, Priesner, Yared, Tomni, Eno et al) who have a richer musical legacy than John Williams who's influences can be seen as ranging from Copland, Scheonberg, Hanson, Korngold, Prokofiev and beyond. Not John Cage, sure, but hardly Souza either.
And because he (and Jerry Goldsmith) revels in it, unlike the minimilism of the great Thomas Newman and his Arvo Part fetishisations, Williams is often labelled as "pompous", "obvious" and artistically moribund by those who would want to be seen to be above all that 'mainstream nonsense'.
Which probably cancels out Coward, Gerswin, Porter, Arlen, Mercer, Berlin and myriad other popular composers with "obvious" orchestartions. But, whatever. If they don't like it, it's their loss.
Listen to some of his and Goldsmith's non-cinema music and you'll see someone just as challenging as the European art set.
Of course he's also an immense popularist, something aesthetes are loath to give good grace to, because it goes against their highbrow worldview (and yes, I realise I'm saying this as an enormously wanky MB poster, but one who also revels as much in popular and trash art and not for sake of appearance or to look "cool")
The fact is, you won't find many (including Bregovich, Priesner, Yared, Tomni, Eno et al) who have a richer musical legacy than John Williams who's influences can be seen as ranging from Copland, Scheonberg, Hanson, Korngold, Prokofiev and beyond. Not John Cage, sure, but hardly Souza either.
And because he (and Jerry Goldsmith) revels in it, unlike the minimilism of the great Thomas Newman and his Arvo Part fetishisations, Williams is often labelled as "pompous", "obvious" and artistically moribund by those who would want to be seen to be above all that 'mainstream nonsense'.
Which probably cancels out Coward, Gerswin, Porter, Arlen, Mercer, Berlin and myriad other popular composers with "obvious" orchestartions. But, whatever. If they don't like it, it's their loss.
Listen to some of his and Goldsmith's non-cinema music and you'll see someone just as challenging as the European art set.
..........
