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From: rlr@pyuxn.UUCP (Rich Rosen)
Newsgroups: net.movies,net.music
Subject: Re: Risky Business
Message-ID: <683@pyuxn.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 21-May-84 09:18:50 EDT
Article-I.D.: pyuxn.683
Posted: Mon May 21 09:18:50 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 22-May-84 07:10:57 EDT
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Organization: Bell Communications Research, Piscataway N.J.
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> Rosen:
> John Williams is no thief!!! Making a statement such as that shows
> your ignorance of his work. He is one of a very few film composers who
> can increase the cohesiveness and appeal of a movie simply by writing its
> score. You may have noticed that at least 7 of the top 10 movie-making
> films were scored by him (ET, STAR WARS, EMPIRE, JAWS, CE3K, RAIDERS,
> JEDI, and RAIDERS). His music is completely different from score to score
> and is only predictable in its high quality.

No one said you can't get high quality by stealing.  Jaws was one of his
really original ideas, and for the simple two-note punch it wields, I give him
credit.  But ever since George Lucas requested a sweeping majestic score
for Star Wars, Williams has consistently re-used the same style over and over,
often seemingly just rearranging the notes like a series of musical anagrams
(witness SW, Raiders, Superman, ET).

> I suspect that the real
> reason that you hate John Williams is that his style is similar to that
> of Wagner and R. Strauss, 19th century composers that you maintain an
> elitist distain of (yes, I read your immature statements concerning
> net.classical). [I GUESS HAVING DIFFERENT TASTES FROM YOU IS IMMATURE]
> Your assertion about Williams is only your opinion,
> and unless you can prove your statements, I will stick to my own view of
> Williams, which , I believe, is based on a much greater familiarity
> with both his works and those of similar classical composers than your
> snide remarks.

Whew!  On the contrary, Williams style is not at all similar to Wagner and
Strauss (well, there is some similarity).  But even a glance at the Star Wars
score is enough to see where he did steal from.  The opening theme has much
of its central section (in orchestration and rhythm) lifted from Holst's
"Mars" (I've heard others mention pointers to "Jupiter", but I didn't
catch them).  The scene with C3P0 and R2D2 in the desert has its music lifted
almost directly (!!!!) from Le Sacre du Printemps.  Though I'm not familiar
with Vaughan Williams as much as I'd like, Close Encounters contains much that
was lifted from Vaughan Williams (was it Antarctica?)  according to musical
analysts.  I no longer have the source article from which I obtained much of
this info, but most of it can be uncovered just by listening.

That answers the informational sections of Deborah's article.  I'll take
the other portions, where she make swipes at my musical background and
at "jaded rock groups", offline.  By the way, I couldn't agree with you
more about James Horner.  There's nothing worse than someone who steals
from a thief.  (Well, there are a few things.)
-- 
"You are not SAM.  You are not ISAM!!!"
					Rich Rosen    pyuxn!rlr