A Close Encounter With The Genius Of John Williams

Faithful readers of this blog will already know that the Auditorium is one of my favourite places in the Eternal city and its Luglio suona bene programme is one of the highlights of the summer. This season, which finishes next week, has featured performances from Francesco De Gregori, Cyndi, Lauper, Jean-Michel Jarre, Keith Jarrett, Joan Baez, Massive Attack and many others at relatively accessible prices -despite one extortionate exception (we're looking at you Gordon Sumner - you only had to drive down the road from Tuscany after all). This week for example, you could have attended something  truly spectacular from the the world class Orchestra dell' Academia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia for the princely sum of 10 euros or splash out on a top price ticket at 20.

The concert in question was entitled Incontri Ravvicinati or Close Encounters - John Williams and Steven Spielberg, a musical celebration of the decades long collaboration between composer and director. The venue was striking, the acoustics superb and the musicians and soloists on virtuoso form - so much so that I could almost forgive the humming narcissist behind and the empty headed kumquat in front of me trying to record the concert on her smart phone. Sadly, it would appear that carrying around a "smart"device in your pocket relieves you of applying any kind of human intelligence in real life, but such is the reality of public places in 2016.

Waiting in anticipation for the orchestra to arrive.
The Auditorium Parco della Musica 28/7/2016

String section warms up. 

The evening's programme featured excerpts from Williams's most iconic scores from some of  Spielberg's best (and best loved films) including E.T., Jaws, The Raiders franchise, Close Encounters Of The Third Kind and Schindler's List. Hearing them live while scenes and stills from the films were projected up on a cinema screen behind the orchestra was both emotional (I got goosebumps and felt close to tears and several times) and educative  - proving how much a composer, especially one of this caliber, contributes to the film going experience. Personally I am not so enamoured of bombast and prefer the minor keys of a Nyman or a Zimmer. Recently I caught up with Synecdoche, New York (a Marmite film if every there was one) and it was John Brion's piano led melancholy that won me over and stayed with me the most. Williams's orchestral grandiloquence has sometimes left me cold and I have wondered if his  favour with Oscar voters (Williams is the most Oscar nominated living person with 49 nominations in total and 44 for best original score) is more a reflection of that less than robust voting body's conservatism and lack of imagination than the depth and breadth of the maestro's genius. However, after this performance I have reassessed that view. It has been widely acknowledged that the tension that makes Jaws such an effective fright movie forty years on is largely due to Williams and those ominous strings not that dodgy, malfunctioning mechanical shark but listening live to his scores to lesser blockbusters like Jurassic Park and even War of the Worlds you realise how integral his music was to their visceral set pieces perhaps even more than the sound effects, editing and dialogue.

Williams and Spielberg at the AFI Life Achievement
Award Gala Tribute to John Williams
 on June 9, 2016, in Los Angeles
 (Photo: Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)

It was a tremendous evening's entertainment which thrilled movie lovers and music lovers alike and met with rapturous applause which in turn was rewarded with two encores. The sombre A Prayer For Peace from 2005's Munich was especially appropriate in a summer characterised by violence and hateful rhetoric across what used to be Europe, however, the final selection sent the audience home on a euphoric wave. OK, so Star Wars is a bit of a cheat but it was at least directed by fellow movie brat George Lucas and its main theme encapsulates everything that is so great about Williams as a film composer - the stirring sweep, the cheesy pomp, a joyful meeting of high and popular art. It certainly made this 50 year old grin from ear to ear like a ten year old boy again and that, in a nutshell, is the gift of the movies of which Williams has played such an essential part.