Who did John Williams take influence from?

Not every composer is perfect.

Even the one who wrote for Star Wars.

You can call it inspiration—I call it stealing. But there is a difference, at least.

MAIN TITLE

Duh, Holst! Holst all around. It's the Planets. They totally give it away. Some may hear Mars, some may hear Jupiter, but there really is one answer: Holst.

Ravel. You might not but I hear a bit of Ravel towards the end of Main Title.

Beethoven? A little. In the beginning. But Beethoven didn't write for sci-fi movies. Beethoven wrote for audience appeal.

Share your thoughts about *ahem* who John Williams was inspired by. Let the games begin!

 

Antonin Dvorak. Listen to the 4th movement of his New World Symphony, and the main theme can segue beautifully into the Throne Room version of the Force theme.

 

ANH (by design) is probably the most "plagiaristic" of the Star Wars scores. For the other scores (both for Star Wars and John Williams in general) the similarities are greatly exaggerated, bordering on coincidence in many cases.

 

Did you hear his Harry Potter scores? My gawd.

 

Those are a mix of self-plagiarizing and intentional homage.

 

I read somewhere that GL was originally planning on using arrangements of great classical pieces for the score, until Spielberg advised him to meet JW. As much as I love JW's score, I've always been curious about what music GL would have chosen if he'd stuck to his original plan.

 

Apart from those influences listed by the OP, always heard a bit of Tchaikovsky in the Throne Room scene in ANH. All that brassy pomp and circumstance! It's a bit 1812. Also in the end titles of ROTS.

Something tangential but feels kinda relevant - Jaws bears a very strong resemblance to Sol Kaplan's score to the Star Trek episode The Doomsday Machine. One's a score for a great big gray thing moving through space, the other's for a great big gray thing with teeth moving through water. Coincidence, or were they both just plugged into the same collectively subconscious sphere of inspiration? YOU decide! Of course, JW went on to score many great big gray thing sin space, like Star Destroyers. Funny old life, eh?

---------------------------------------------------------
Disclaimer: this is not a criticism of JW. Like all great artistes, he hoovers up ideas subconsciously and reworks them and makes them his own. I love his work. The end.

 

John Williams is a great composer. He managed to copy more composers we could count.


(Of course, in this thread, we will TRY to count them!)

 

Personally I don't care about any of this. If the music is good, interesting and compelling, I don't care who it was inspired by, who it was paying homage to. I find characterizing things as "stealing" or "copying" to be rude, distasteful and disrespectful to Williams and artists in general. Art is built on the shoulders of those artists who came before. There is nothing truly original, there is only adapting, evolving, progressing. Dvorak was not original. Beethoven was not original. They built on the works of the artists who came before them. They paid homage, they adapted ideas and styles and approaches from those who they admired and who came before them. It's how human art and music works. I just don't see the need to sit around listing all the ways Williams "stole" and "copied" other artists.

 

OK, how about we discuss who influenced JW's work in SW?

 

I don't think any disrepect was intended. You're right of course - that's how human creativity works, and what imagination and art is for - pushing the boundaries of the envelope and inventing new spaces, grammars and procedures for new ideas to exist. I get the idea this thread is tongue-in-cheek. I certainly took it as such (hence the 'disclaimer.')

So... yeah, influences!

 

Thank you for your opinion. I had meant for the term "stealing" to be comedic, as, like you said, there is nothing truly original. The thread is mainly to compare similar works to the SW soundtracks. I admire your post and yet I have to protest because we are not sitting around listing all the ways Williams "stole" and "copied" other artists. We are listening to SW music and recalling similar composers and pieces. I am a bit offended on how you explained yourself, though, as you made it seem like we are accusing Williams. I know that my previous post may be offensive to some. I apologize to any others who find it offensive as well.

 

Ah, ok. I still think that discussions of Williams' inspirations (or stealings, whichever you prefer) lend to the false credence that Williams is a bad composer (not from anybody here of course).

 

This might interest some of you:

http://news.wabe.org/post/composer-john-williams-embodies-art-musical-borrowing

 

^It interests some of us.

 

This is one of the few Williams stealings that really bothered me.

 

Isn't the Force Theme a variation of House of the Rising Sun?

 

Same chord progression but not much else.

 

One of my favorite videos is this combo of "Throne Room/End Titles" from "Star Wars" and "New World Symphony," and how the two flow so easily in and out of each other:


My father also makes frequent references to "Ride of the Valkyries" in regards to the Star Wars main titles.

 

Cool! Thanks, Dinos, it's good to know I'm not the only one who thought that there was more than a passing similarity.

 

Listen to Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake.

Then listen to Hedwig's Theme from Harry Potter.

It makes you wonder about the tune....

 

Tchaikovsky, yes! Ever compare the slow movement of his Symphony No. 5 and the Asteroid Field theme from ESB?

 

What about ROTS scores? Any influences from other?

 

speaking of self-plagiarizing... I was laughing my butt off how JW snuck this theme into star wars

0:43



this whole theme, but notably 2:56

 

I am not a fan of the idea the people can "own" an idea or imagination.
Simply being inspired by another work and creating something based on it doesn't equal stealing.
Even under copyright law in U.S, being inspired by a work and creating something is NOT always considered stealing.
Beethoveen and Joseph Maurice Ravel is in the public domain so he can "borrow" away.

So many creative works use elements from other creative works and draw inspiration from something.
Even the plot/charactes of SW not just the music shares elements with other creative works.

That doesn't mean it is stealing.