Who did John Williams take influence from?

I think we have hit all the main influences, but I'm really impressed with the jazz tie in. Williams was a jazz pianist and it shows in an number of his progressions.

For those of you that haven't heard Herrmann

 

I think as far as the general style goes, John Williams was probably inspired by Alexander Courage, at least for Star Wars.

Listen to the main theme from the Christopher Reeve Superman movies, and the theme for the Original Series of Star Trek (both composed by Alexander Courage), then listen to the main theme for Star Wars, and see what you think.

 

Holst. The Planet suite.

This has already been said. And in bold. Sorry to repeat.

 

I'm confused. Are you saying Alexander Courage composed the music and the main theme for the Christopher Reeve Superman films? Cuz that was John Williams...

 

*Runs to check*

Crud, you're right! D'oh!

Well anyway, the original series Star Trek theme definitely is Alexander Courage. And I should know, because I'm as much Trekkie as Warsie.

 

Yeah, the username kinda gives that away.

And I'm glad to see there's no bloody A, B, C, or D!

 

I just heard Stravinsky's Firebird suite on the radio. Has anybody mentioned that one yet? The "action sequence" in the middle could easily fit into a SW chase scene.

 

Re the Star Wars main theme - Has everyone seen the BBC programme" Sound of Cinema", where the presenter Neil Brand demonstrates the striking similarity with the opening few bars of Korngold's score for King's Row (1942)?

 

Re Alexander Courage and Star Trek - I believe that at one point, Jerry Goldsmith was going to be hired to compose a theme to the original Star Trek TV series but it ultimately went to Courage, who was a friend of Goldsmith's.

When Goldsmith came to score The Motion Picture, he decide himself to quote Courage's fanfire at a couple of spots when he had been given an "all new" remit for the music and didn't have to acknowledge Courage at all.

Furthermore. If you play the opening theme to another 1979 space movie scored by Goldsmith, namely Alien, the first three notes of the rather more ominous and ambiguous fanfare are directly transposed from Courage's original Star Trek theme.

 

Just thought I'd post a few more videos of the Raymond Scott Quintette that I referred to earlier, featuring John Williams' father on the driums.

Enjoy.

 

Indeed.

 

I remember an interview about where Williams got his inspiration from and who his favorite composers were ... I just don't remember where he said it - or maybe it was at a speech after winning a price? ... Sorry :"/

 

I've been listening to a lot of Mozart and Beethoven, as well as Bach...I can definitely see where John Williams got his inspiration from.

 

John Williams himself has little to no influence on what "inspires" the music of the films. See, in the film business, including the Star Wars films, movies are often temp-tracked. That means that the *director* will take music from other films, or classical works, and will edit the film to the music itself. Then, if the director becomes attached to the music, whether that be stylistically of habitually, they will ask the composer to "emulate" the temp-tracks. By that, I mean that the director will essentially ask the composer to literally copy the temp music, but perhaps make a few changes here-and-there to avoid copyright infringement. This was certainly the case for Star Wars, and has been confirmed many, many times, even by Williams himself. The first film, for instance, was heavily temp-tracked with various pieces of classical music, including Holst's Planets suite, which was one of Lucas' main influences for the first film. Originally, he intended to actually use the classical music itself, but was convinced by Spielberg to hire Williams instead. This has often been the case for most of Williams' scores. Often times a director might use Williams' own music as a temp-score, and will basically ask him to copy his own music. Rian Johnson, for instance, recently confirmed via Twitter that he is temp-tracking The Last Jedi mostly with John's own music from the previous films. How much the temp-score influences the score itself is determined solely by the director, not the composer.