John Williams Star Wars and Prayer for Peace

John Williams – Star Wars and Prayer for Peace
John Williams is probably one of the best-known composers of our time, with his blockbuster scores for movies such as “Star Wars,” “Jaws,” “E.T.,” “Superman,” “Indiana Jones,” and many more. Not only is he known for film music, but he has also composed many concert pieces, and has a long legacy of conducting major orchestras, notably the Boston Pops Orchestra where he served for 13 years, and continues to conduct as Laureate Conductor. Williams was born in 1932, grew up in LA and studied composition, piano, jazz and film music with well-known musicians such as Rosina Lhevinne, Franz Waxman, Alfred Newman, and Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, as well as attending Juilliard School of Music. He has won over 100 awards, including Oscars, Grammies, and others. Steven Spielberg calls John Williams “a master of disguise,” a composer able to serve the different needs of such varying subjects. For the film, “Terminal Man,” Williams created an ethnic music for a country that does not exist nor has a national style of music. For “Indiana Jones,” “Superman,” and other action movies, his style is swashbuckling and stirring. For “Schindlers List” it is the most poignant and heartbreaking music one can imagine.
Prayer for Peace – John Williams
This dark and lyrical piece was composed for “Munich,” the film which tells of the attempts to find the terrorists who massacred Olympian athletes in Munich in 1972.
Howard Shore – Lord of the Rings
Howard Shore’s music has become almost as well-known as John Williams’ music, with the score for “Lord of the Rings,” “Twilight,” “Mrs. Doubtfire,” “Silence of the Lambs,” and many more. He was born in Toronto, Canada in 1946 and began studying music and playing instruments at age 8. He studied music at Berklee College of Music in Boston, and serves on the board of trustees there presently. He has won many awards, including three Oscars, three Golden Globes and three consecutive Grammy awards. In 2012, he received Canada’s Governor General’s Performing Arts Awards for Lifetime Artistic Achievement.
Ennio Morricone – Gabriel’s Oboe
The Italian composer, Ennio Morricone, composed the music for the 1986 film, “The Mission,” and the theme, Gabriel’s Oboe, is played when the Jesuit Father Gabriel, walks up to a waterfall and plays his oboe, trying to befriend the natives. It has become a very popular piece of music, and has been arranged and performed by various artists. Lyrics have been added to the melody and various arrangements, including a choral arrangement, have been recorded.
Ennio Morricone was born in Rome in 1928, and has been active in the music world for over 60 years. He composes, conducts, arranges, produces and plays trumpet and piano. He’s composed music for over 500 motion pictures and television series. Early fame came to him when he composed music for his former schoolmate, the filmmaker Sergio Leone, who created a number of so-called “spaghetti Westerns” such as “Once Upon a Time in the West,” the “Fistful of Dollars” trilogy, and “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.” Current film scores include “Inglorious Basterds,” and “Django Unchained.” His early classical training includes entering the National Academy of Santa Cecilia at age 12, studying composition, choral music, and trumpet. He enrolled in a 4-year harmony program at that young age, completing it in six months. Film producer and director Barry Levinson said, “He doesn't have a piano in his studio, I always thought that with composers, you sit at the piano, and you try to find the melody. There's no such thing with Morricone. He hears a melody, and he writes it down. He hears the orchestration completely done.”
Richard Strauss – Also Sprach Zarathustra
Richard Strauss, 1864-1949, was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early Modern era. He is particularly known for his operas and symphonic poems. His music has directly and indirectly been a part of current culture for years through the influence he had on film composers such as Erich Korngold, Alfred Newman, and John Williams.
Particularly well-known is Strauss’ symphonic poem, “Also Sprach Zarathustra,” composed in 1896, and inspired by Nietzche’s philosophical novel of the same name. It features 9 sections, the first of which is entitled, “Einleitung oder Sonnenaufgang,” translated as “Introduction or Sunrise,” which includes the famous fanfare used in the opening of Kubrick’s 1968 film, “2001: A Space Odyssey.”
Strauss’ compositional oeuvre includes many vocal works, chamber music, orchestral music and operas. He lived in a very chaotic time of history in Europe, and his connections with the Nazi regime have been discussed in many writings. He was appointed head of the Reichsmusikkammer, the Reichs Music Bureau, in 1933, when the Nazis first came to power. However, because of his work with Stefan Zweig, the Jewish librettist, as well as his son’s Jewish wife, Alice, he was removed from his position in 1935, but still regarded with a certain respect. Much of Strauss’ motivation was to prevent his grandsons and his daughter-in-law from being sent to concentration camps. Nonetheless, at one point, they were arrested and imprisoned while Strauss was out of the country, but he was able to gain their release and they remained under house arrest till the end of the war. Toscanini spoke disparagingly of Strauss, the man, but after the war, most people began to understand his position. At the end of World War II, Strauss wrote in his private diary: “The most terrible period of human history is at an end, the twelve year reign of bestiality, ignorance and anti-culture under the greatest criminals, during which Germany's 2000 years of cultural evolution met its doom.”
Franz von Suppe – The Light Cavalry Overture
Franz von Suppe, 1819-1895, is a well-known composer of the Romantic era who composed over four dozen operettas. He was born in Spalato, Dalmatia, now a part of Croatia, and spent his adult life in Vienna. He studied flute and composition as a young man, and later went into school for law, not his choice, but continued to study music. He was also a singer, a basso profundo, and performed and conducted opera. He wrote music for over a hundred theater productions in Vienna. His music has been used in Walt Disney cartoons and other current culture forms. “The Light Cavalry Overture” is the overture to the operetta, “The Light Cavalry,” premiered in 1866, which is rarely performed or recorded, but the overture itself remains a very popular piece of classical music, in fact, probably Von Suppe’s most popular composition. The operetta is set in the 18^th century and concerns the intrigues of a Hungarian Baron and his mistress. The ballet company is referred to as “the light cavalry.” The music includes bravura melodies, trumpet calls and brass fanfares, and a galloping rhythm. The Viennese audiences were fascinated with the “exotic” sounds of Hungary and gypsies.