John Williams - Blog

Transcript of conversation with John Williams

John Williams: The Star Wars experience has been a fascinating journey. The first Star Wars film that I did with George Lucas, whenever that was,  I thought, well, it has to be a grand fanfare and it has to start off with, put it this way, with a bang, with a full fortissimo explosion of energy and trumpets and the rest of it.  And so I wrote the piece that I wrote.  

[Music]

It starts with an unprepared, high sienna trumpet.  People can hear the music itself.  The way that orchestra-- there’s no preparation note for the trumpeters.  It’s very difficult.  They have to grab it right out of the ether.  It was a particularly great performance of brass playing.  And so the spirit of, I think you could also say, militarism is apparent in the performance I think, in the writing also.  Because it is a military piece after all, spaceships and an army of space, if you like to think of it that way.  So it has that swagger and that sense of commitment and dedication to the journey.

[Music]