Revered composer John Williams has walked again his retirement discuss, saying of earlier stories that he’d put down his baton for the ultimate time, “I don’t care much for grand pronunciamentos, statements that are firm and finished and surrounded by closed doors. If I made one without putting it in context then I withdraw it.”
Williams, 91, advised The Times newspaper: “If a film came along that I was greatly interested in, with a schedule that I could cope with, then I wouldn’t want to rule anything out. Everything is possible. All is before us. Only our limitations are holding us back. Or, to put it more simply: I like to keep an open mind.”
If Williams is planning to attain motion pictures rather less, and compose his personal materials a bit extra, his diary is already full for 2024. He will conduct his personal Second Violin Concerto with London’s Philharmonic Orchestra in January, and likewise conduct in Vienna. And he already has a conducting reserving in Berlin for 2025.
Of his extraordinary profession, Williams mused on the bridge that he has seen constructed between the business world and the classical music world. He mentioned:
“Thirty or 40 years ago, when I would take a programme of film music to one of our big orchestras, there might be condescension. I understood it; I understand the value of things made in the commercial world and their place in the art world. But now things are different. I’d love to come back in 50 years’ time and see what cinema is contributing to the development of new music, because I think young composers will want to work across both.”
As the composer for dozens of film scores, together with the heralded Jaws theme, Star Wars, Schindler’s List, Jurassic Park and Harry Potter, Williams is commonly requested if there’s a uniting theme to his music. He advised The Times:
“Film requires you to adapt your style to every project that comes along: Home Alone can’t be in the same idiom as Saving Private Ryan or Jurassic Park, but perhaps we all have many parts to our characters. Somewhere in all of my film scores there must be some kind of ‘me’. But I leave that to others to identify.”
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