🎵 2022-08-29 22:27:29 – Paris/France.
August 29, 2022, 20:25 PM | Updated: August 29, 2022, 21:27 PM
I played the shark theme to Spielberg and he said, “you can't be serious” – John Williams on composing Jaws. Photo: Aliyah
The film music legend, composer of Star Wars, Schindler's List and Superman, spoke to Classic FM in an exclusive interview on his 90th birthday.
Just two notes, to encapsulate a movie's main character - John Williams' famous "da, duh" theme for Jaws (1975) won the composer his second Oscar and became one of the most memorable themes in film history.
But when he first composed it, director Steven Spielberg thought he had it.
In an exclusive interview for Classic FM (Watch here on Global Player) in the year of his 90th birthday, Williams explained, "Initially…I did a score for Robert Altman called Pictureswhich was about Japanese sounds, shakuhachi, percussion, etc., and that's the music that Steven [Spielberg] thought he should have… for Jaws. Something with this complexity and all this dissonance and so on.
“And I thought that was a crazy idea, that it was a simple adventure and that I had to come up with a musical theme or an idea that could represent the shark or represent our primordial fear – like we fear snakes. We fear the beasts of the sea,” Williams told Andrew Collins, host of Saturday Night at the Movies on Classic FM.
"And he came to my room at Fox Studios, and he said, 'What are you going to do about the shark? and I played E, F, E, F, E, F, D, F and so on.
"And he said, 'You can't be serious? I said, “Well, I think when the basses and the cellos of the orchestra, maybe backed by timpani or a contrabassoon [play it], you might be convinced that it's pretty scary. Uh, let's try.' »
"At that time, I had no idea it would have such an impact on people," the composer added of his iconic adventure-thriller score. “Steven and I had a little laugh about it. »
Read more: John Williams Needed a Clarinetist on 'Jaws,' So Spielberg Volunteered
Williams is the most Oscar-nominated living person today, and his longtime collaboration with Spielberg has produced some of the most beloved films of the past half-century. And today, Williams' music has come to life beyond the screen – his themes are heard in concert halls around the world, played by leading orchestras from the Vienna Philharmonic to the 'London Symphony Orchestra.
In the interview, which was recorded at Hollywood's iconic Amblin Studios, Williams also spoke about the enduring power of music. "I've often said that music for musicians is like oxygen, you know, what is it, what sustains us," mused the composer.
“We can think of music as a living thing,” he added. “Once out of the composer's pen, it's there, it's alive. Whatever Tchaikovsky wrote, whatever Schoenberg wrote is still alive and with us. They've created something that doesn't go away, and, and I want to be grateful for all of us, if I can put it that way, for the music itself.
“You and I are talking. Right now we're in Los Angeles, and you're from Britain. What brought us together? Music. That's why we're together in this room, not because of planes or cameras or any of your technologies, but because of music.
“What little I can possibly contribute with my little scores is nothing compared to the work of Bach or Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, one of the great colossal geniuses who developed the music which, in our western sphere, we hold so dear to our hearts as one of the foundations of our culture.
SOURCE: Reviews News
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