Post by erik on Jul 10, 2021 17:38:42 GMT -5
An early John Williams score, for a 1971 adaptation of a classic Charlotte Bronte novel, is in this week's Classical Works Spotlight.
John Williams: JANE EYRE
While John Williams became known for his epic film scores to some of Hollywood’s biggest blockbusters between 1975 and 2021, like a lot of other film composers, he did have to toil in obscurity before getting his chance at the big time. Very early on, he served as a pianist in the studio orchestras of such film scoring titans as Henry Mancini, Bernard Herrmann, Elmer Bernstein, and Jerry Goldsmith; and along with Goldsmith and Jerry Fielding, he also took compositional lessons from the noted classical composer Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco. The first known credit that Williams could get was for the highly successful 1963 melodrama Diamond Head, followed in 1966 by The Rare Breed, and, somewhat infamously, the trashy 1967 camp cult classic Valley Of The Dolls. Williams then teamed up with director Mark Rydell in 1969 to do the Americana score for that director’s film version of William Faulkner’s The Reivers, which got him the first of fifty Academy Award nominations. The most unusual score of Williams’ early period, however, was the result of a made-for-TV version of the classic Charlotte Bronte novel Jane Eyre. The film, which was shot in England and premiered there theatrically (in December 1970), before airing on NBC on March 24, 1971, focuses on the dark past of the titular character (portrayed by Susannah York) at a British boarding school, and her falling in love with the owner of the boarding school (portrayed by George C. Scott). Gothic in nature, as well as baroque (utilizing the harpsichord most prominently), it was one of a number of collaborations between Williams and legendary TV/film director Delbert Mann, whose 1968 TV film Heidi was one of those collaborations. But while the film itself was hugely successful in British theaters and on American TV, the score for Jane Eyre waited some forty-eight years to be heard even in excerpts until two excerpts were performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra under David Newman at the Hollywood Bowl in September 2019.
London Studio Symphony Orchestra/JOHN WILLIAMS (Capitol/EMI)
John Williams: JANE EYRE
While John Williams became known for his epic film scores to some of Hollywood’s biggest blockbusters between 1975 and 2021, like a lot of other film composers, he did have to toil in obscurity before getting his chance at the big time. Very early on, he served as a pianist in the studio orchestras of such film scoring titans as Henry Mancini, Bernard Herrmann, Elmer Bernstein, and Jerry Goldsmith; and along with Goldsmith and Jerry Fielding, he also took compositional lessons from the noted classical composer Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco. The first known credit that Williams could get was for the highly successful 1963 melodrama Diamond Head, followed in 1966 by The Rare Breed, and, somewhat infamously, the trashy 1967 camp cult classic Valley Of The Dolls. Williams then teamed up with director Mark Rydell in 1969 to do the Americana score for that director’s film version of William Faulkner’s The Reivers, which got him the first of fifty Academy Award nominations. The most unusual score of Williams’ early period, however, was the result of a made-for-TV version of the classic Charlotte Bronte novel Jane Eyre. The film, which was shot in England and premiered there theatrically (in December 1970), before airing on NBC on March 24, 1971, focuses on the dark past of the titular character (portrayed by Susannah York) at a British boarding school, and her falling in love with the owner of the boarding school (portrayed by George C. Scott). Gothic in nature, as well as baroque (utilizing the harpsichord most prominently), it was one of a number of collaborations between Williams and legendary TV/film director Delbert Mann, whose 1968 TV film Heidi was one of those collaborations. But while the film itself was hugely successful in British theaters and on American TV, the score for Jane Eyre waited some forty-eight years to be heard even in excerpts until two excerpts were performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra under David Newman at the Hollywood Bowl in September 2019.
London Studio Symphony Orchestra/JOHN WILLIAMS (Capitol/EMI)