Star Wars is one of the most popular film series of all time. It has introduced science fiction, space and Chewbacca to generations of filmgoers. It has a complex score that is composed by John Williams; a giant in twentieth century composition.
Williams began his musical training in New York City before moving across to California to make waves in Hollywood. He lists many twentieth century composers as his main influence including Edward Elgar. During the 1960s he began composing for small scale films before becoming associated with the director Steven Speilberg. This collaboration was shown in the films Sugarland Express and Jaws. Williams is responsible for making the symphonic film score an integral part of the Hollywood scene during the 1970s. He has enjoyed long relationships with Hollywood heavyweights such as George Lucas. During the 1980s Williams began to expand his compositional techniques to the incorporation of choral textures; adding to his growing sense of composing for epic films such as Schindler’s List.
John Williams’ conducting debut of the Boston Pops Orchestra
However, many have linked Williams’ composition of the score for Star Wars to iconic works of bygone composers. A direct comparison has often been made with Holst’s The Planets suite.
This WordPress blog (http://reederman.wordpress.com/john-williams/) argues that Williams adopted a revisionist approach to his scoring of Star Wars IV: A New Hope. He used techniques from late Romantic composers such as Gustav Holst and Igor Stravinsky. In contrast to a large amount of other internet literature surrounding accusations of plagarism against Williams, Reedertheman argues that his compositional achievements should be seen as his attempt to remix and revise late Romantic music; thus making it popular once more and creating one of the most iconic film scores of all time. Star Wars is not the only film where John Williams has been accused of plagiarism. The iconic repeated minor second interval from the Jaws theme has drawn direct comparisons to Dvorak’s New World Symphony.
However, Williams’ use of similar compositional motives can be attributed to his use of repeating basic patterns. This is a trait inherited from early film composers such as John Stepan Zamecnik who used to catalogue music to fit certain situations and moods within films. Mooreman refers to this as “referential composing” and elaborates upon how it is commonly used throughout film music composition and earlier works as well. The influence of the two note ostinati in Jaws is profound and Mooreman links it to many later films such as The Pink Panther Strikes Again. Williams is a groundbreaking composer of the 20th and 21st centuries. His music is recognised and loved by many people worldwide but it is an exploration of the accusations of plagiarism against his work that will bring a new angle to this line of inquiry in musicological research.
References
- Cooke, Mervyn. “Film Music.” In Grove Music Online. Accessed October 1st 2014. Oxford Music Online.
- Marks, Martin and Palmer, Christopher. “John Williams.” In Grove Music Online. Accessed October 1st 2014. Oxford Music Online.
- Mooreman, Peter.”Composing with Types and Flexible Modules: John Williams’ Two-Note Ostinato for Jaws and its Use in FIlm-Music History.” Journal of Film Music. 5 (2012). 165-168
- Reederman Blog. http://reederman.wordpress.com/john-williams/
Film Music 