The Best Film Composer Of All Time

Thanks, Con! Your piece from Atlantis is definitely a solid choice. I too remember those beautiful scores from the Disney movies I've watched as a kid.With my second musical work I wanted to show Williams' versatility as a composer, and decided to move away from the heroic themes to show you how John Williams scores tragic movies, such as Schindler's List. When Steven Spielberg, the director of Schindler's List, approached Williams with the film, Williams, amazed by the movie, said to him, "You need a better composer than I am for this film." To that Spielberg responded, "I know. But they're all dead!" Thus, Spielberg openly regards John Williams as the greatest composer alive, and I can only agree with him.This score consistently appears at the top of lists of the best film scores, and many John Williams fans regard his score for Schindler's List as the most emotionally moving score Williams has ever written. This is also recognized by the academia and critics, as the score received universal acclaim, as well as Academy, BAFTA and Grammy awards in 1993.The Second PieceThe particular piece that I want to show you is the main theme of the film - "Theme from Schindler's List" (link: ), which features Itzhak Perlman - one of the greatest violin players in the world. As he is of Jewish descent, he fully understands the impact of the events depicted in the film, which is, perhaps, why the score resonates so much with the listener - it has been composed and performed with genuine emotion.The score starts with a brief introduction, leading to the main theme (0:16 - 1:07). The theme, compositionally, appears very simple: Every other bar there is a constant idea, recognizable by the two initial melodic jumps. This fragment repeats throughout the theme and changes only minimally, setting the mood for the theme, keeping the structure of the piece steady and not letting the melody stray too far. What gives us the feeling of melodic development, however, are the remaining bars, which are not constant. These bars fill in the gaps with movement and allow the soloist to fully show his emotion through musical accents, dynamics and tempo changes.The main theme is then repeated on a higher octave (1:08), emphasizing the tragic atmosphere even more, as the violin reminds us of human grief and lament. The theme perfectly fits to the scenes of the film, resulting in a gigantic emotional impact on the audience.At 2:03 we see that the idea heard in the introduction of the piece develops into a full-fledged melody. We can also hear a musical dialogue between the violinist and the rest of the orchestra, which I personally find very beautiful.After a final restatement of the main theme (2:39) we move to the final part of the piece, which is based on the main theme (3:33). This leads us to the cadence, ending the piece.Summary of the Second PieceWhat makes this piece great, in my opinion, are not necessarily the strictly musical aspects (e.g. melodies and dynamics), which are, nonetheless, very beautiful, but the mutual understanding between Williams, the composer, and Perlmann, the player. It is evident that Williams composed the piece with Perlman in mind, and when a composer actually knows who is composing for and is aware of the capabilities of the performers, it can result in top-notch musical experience for the listener.As I've stated before, the piece may look simple from a structural-compositional perspective, but it is all the more so amazing how much emotion and musical development we actually feel, despite its deceptive simplicity. The movie is, of course, great in and of itself, but coupled with the astonishingly beautiful score it results in the ultimate emotional work of art, which I, by the way, encourage you all to see, if you haven't done so yet.So we've seen the Heroic Williams and the Tragic Williams which leaves us with two more Williamses left to hear. But before that let's hear another James Newton Howard piece. Over to Con!