Quote:

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I can't imagine anyone not having heard at least a small part of his work. Cartoons, commercials, etc all have used something from him.

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But how many people on Earth can exist that have watched NONE of the following:

Star Wars
Jurassic Park
Indiana Jones
Superman
Harry Potter
E.T.
Jaws
the Olympics on NBC

?

Yoda said:

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Musical knowledge and ears.

Brian Earl Spilner said:

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Quote:

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I can't imagine anyone not having heard at least a small part of his work. Cartoons, commercials, etc all have used something from him.

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But how many people on Earth can exist that have watched NONE of the following:

Star Wars
Jurassic Park
Indiana Jones
Superman
Harry Potter
E.T.
Jaws
the Olympics on NBC

?

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I would imagine the population that is exposed to Beethoven through cartoons is the same group that has seen those movies.

Brian Earl Spilner said:

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John Williams > Beethoven

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Hold on there, sport. Let's not get carried away.

It's not exactly fair, Beethoven is in the public domain.

Brian Earl Spilner said:

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Quote:

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I can't imagine anyone not having heard at least a small part of his work. Cartoons, commercials, etc all have used something from him.

---

But how many people on Earth can exist that have watched NONE of the following:

Star Wars
Jurassic Park
Indiana Jones
Superman
Harry Potter
E.T.
Jaws
the Olympics on NBC

?

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Has anyone not heard Beethoven's Fifth? It wouldn't surprise me if that single composition has been heard by more people than have heard every western film composer combined.

Not to mention that it's not that rare for various movies of all genres to use existing classical pieces for their soundracks. I've heard everything from Chopin's Nocturnes ( Op.9 #2 is insanely popular), Beethoven's 5th, Moonlight Sonata, Pastorale, etc., Mozart has been played an insane amount. Hell, I've even embarrassed my wife by geeking out when I heard Mahler in one flick.

Ulrich said:

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Brian Earl Spilner said:

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Quote:

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I can't imagine anyone not having heard at least a small part of his work. Cartoons, commercials, etc all have used something from him.

---

But how many people on Earth can exist that have watched NONE of the following:

Star Wars
Jurassic Park
Indiana Jones
Superman
Harry Potter
E.T.
Jaws
the Olympics on NBC

?

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Has anyone not heard Beethoven's Fifth? It wouldn't surprise me if that single composition has been heard by more people than have heard every western film composer combined.

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Well, a better question might be how many people have heard more than the first four notes?

John Williams is a hack that samples from actual composers.

He is the Lil Wayne of orchestral composition.

John Williams

/EOT

The Debt said:

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John Williams is a hack that samples from actual composers.

He is the Lil Wayne of orchestral composition.

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Back up your claim. List all his works and who he sampled from in those works.

Some examples of similarities:

It should be noted that temp music is used in a lot of major films. It isn't so much being "a hack that samples from actual composers" as drawing inspiration from the piece and getting the tone that the director is going for.

The Rebel Force Radio guys talk a lot about this in their "Star Wars Oxygen" podcast series.

Bruce Almighty said:

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The Debt said:

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John Williams is a hack that samples from actual composers.

He is the Lil Wayne of orchestral composition.

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Back up your claim. List all his works and who he sampled from in those works.

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The theme from Star Wars is basically Gustav Holst' Mars. The timpanis are damn near identical.

Its the difference between GoBots and Transformers. GoBots came out first but the ripoff gets all the attention.

Interesting. I thought both Tchaikovsky ones were a reach. Dvorak, too. But the others, I gotta say, too similar.

That is a good point.

This video is a bit better, though not sure I would use the words "rip off":

This is actually a really good video for this whole discussion. Even talks a little bit about the major differences between Williams and Zimmer.

Worth the 12 minute runtime IMO.

I think John Williams is a great composer. Sure, he takes liberties a little bit at times with the extent to which he's inspired by an earlier piece, but to say he's a hack is unfair IMO (by the way, not sure I want to listen to the musical opinions of someone who uses Lil Wayne as his example of extensive sampling).

The main problem with comparing Williams to Beethoven is that is a bit apples to oranges. They work in very different styles of music. It might make more sense to compare Williams to one of the Romantic composers instead of a Classical guy like Beethoven.

Debt is a hack troll.

The Debt said:

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Bruce Almighty said:

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The Debt said:

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John Williams is a hack that samples from actual composers.

He is the Lil Wayne of orchestral composition.

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Back up your claim. List all his works and who he sampled from in those works.

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The theme from Star Wars is basically Gustav Holst' Mars. The timpanis are damn near identical.

Its the difference between GoBots and Transformers. GoBots came out first but the ripoff gets all the attention.

---

He took some liberties with the Planets, but not nearly as much as you make it seem.

Brian Earl Spilner said:

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John Williams > Beethoven

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Despite The Debt's troll attempts, the problem here is that typically the ">" sign means "greater than".

I get having a much stronger preference for Williams' music than Beethoven's, but (despite them playing such different styles) there's just no way Williams is 'greater than' Beethoven.

Williams genius was repackaging others' work for ignorant audiences.

Williams isn't even in the same league as Ennio Morricone but "oh My gawd did Jaws, and I totes luv that moov-eeeh!!"

My guess is that those times when his motifs are similar to older composers', it is conscious homage rather than wholesale theft.

I think Morricone is really great too.

Either way, I don't think either of those guys (or any contemporary film composer for that matter) could be considered in the top ten greatest composers of all time. For me, Williams would most likely make the top 20, which is still an incredibly achievement.

Hmmm, this thread could spawn two official TexAgs brackets - Favorite Classical Composer and Favorite Modern Media Composer. We've already got some good nominations for both. Add Poledouris, Horner, Mancini, and Morricone to the latter list.

Add Vivaldi to the classical list, Danny Elfman to the movie list

Howard Shore

Well you know what they say: I'd rather have one Howard Shore than an unshowered w.h.o.r.e.


{no one says that}
{too much caffeine}

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I get that the classical composers' music has been around for much longer than anything JW has done, but did any of those guys ever have millions of people listening to their work?

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Those guys didnt have mass media to deliver their work to everyday people, nor was the population as large as it is today.

Great call on Elfman.

Add Jerry Goldsmith to the modern guys

3rdGen2015 said:

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This is actually a really good video for this whole discussion. Even talks a little bit about the major differences between Williams and Zimmer.

Worth the 12 minute runtime IMO.

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Glad I finally came back to watch this. Very interesting.

This little video brings into relief that fact that a film composer's job is so far removed from that of a 'classical' composer, that it would be wrong to compare them at all.