Mason Perricone
American Music Final
John Williams
When John Towner William was born February 8, 1932 in Floral Park, New York, no one knew what he would become, what he would create. Now, to some, he is one of if not the greatest film composer of all time. After a career spanning six decades and over 80 feature length films, Williams is known as one of the best minds in composition. Son of Johnny and Esther Williams, John relocated to the Los Angeles are in 1948. His father a jazz percussionist, Williams’ love for music was inspired from a young age. Williams studied piano as a child, and later trumpet, trombone, and clarinet. He did some work as a teenager with pianist and arranger Bobby van Epps before moving from his native New York to Los Angeles. After graduating from North Hollywood High School in 1950, he was accepted to the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). While at UCLA, Williams was privately tutored by Italian composer Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco. Tedesco, know as a revolutionary in guitar composition, composed for over 200 films produced by MGM studios. Before finishing his undergrad degree at UCLA, Williams was drafted into the United States Air Force in 1952. While enlisted, he conducted and arranged music for the US Air Force as part of his assignments (Dinneen, 2009). In 1954 he returned to New York, enrolled at the Juilliard School, and studied piano with Rosina Lhévinne. Lhévinne, one the most noted pianists of the twentieth century and a highly influential teacher, was a virtuoso performer. One of the last artists in the nineteenth-century Russian pianistic tradition, she taught some of the most famous musicians of the twentieth century, including Van Cliburn, John Browning, Mischa Dichter, Ade...
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...ation as a conductor, resulting in his appointment as conductor of the Boston Pops Orchestra from 1980 to 1993. He has conducted for a number of orchestras, and in 1993 he was appointed artist in residence at Tanglewood, in Lenox, Massachusetts, teaching young film scorers how to develop their craft.
Most of Williams’s early work was for television. With the increasing number of television shows in the 1950’s, he had plenty of opportunities. Williams’s early work in film was as an orchestrator for established film composers, providing cues for films such as The Apartment (1960) and The Guns of Navarone (1961). Composing his own music, he ranged from comedies (such as John Goldfarb, Please Come Home), to disaster films (such as The Towering Inferno), to cowboy dramas (such as The Missouri Breaks), to Alfred Hitchcock’s final film, Family Plot.
In Eric Williams' essay, "Capitalism and Slavery", the first thing he stresses is that racism came from slavery, not the other way around. Of course I was immediately put off by this statement after reading Winthrop Jordan's "White over Black: American attitudes toward the Negro, 1550-1812", which has quite the opposite idea stated in it. Fortunately, Eric Williams' essay nearly tears itself apart on its own without any help from me, as he failed to recognize his own inherent classism and racism. It is his idea that because blacks were not the first to be used for free labor, just the cheapest form of free labor, that it was not racism that made the English, Spanish, and French use them. That, of course, is complete bullshit. Here's why.
Though Jelly Roll Morton began his career without formal training, he grew to live an influential life. His piano style, musical notations on paper, and creative compositions thrived in the 1910s and the 1920s and even weaved its way into the later eras as musicians used Morton’s music as the foundation for their own. Even past his death, Jelly Roll Morton remains a legendary figure. His works are meticulously preserved and displayed in the prestigious Smithsonian Museum and universities around the world continue his legacy by teaching students about Jelly Roll Morton and his influential career.
To fully understand the relationship between a filmmaker and a composer, it is helpful to take a closer look at the filmmaker’s position towards music in film in general; these can of course differ substantially from one director to another. It seems, one must think, that the complete narrative and emotive potential of film music is not yet fully recognized and appreciated in many film produc...
Ralph Vaughan Williams was born in The Vicarage, in Down Ampney, on October 12, 1872 to Arthur and Margaret Vaughan Williams. Ralph’s father; Arthur was the vicar of the All Saints Church in Down Ampney in 1868. Through his mothers side Ralph had two famous great-great-grand fathers; Josiah Wedgwood, the founder of the pottery at Stoke-on-Trent, and Erasmus Darwin, the grandfather of Charles Darwin. In 1875 Ralph’s father suddenly died, when he was only two years old. His mother moved him and his two siblings to the Wedgwood family home: Leith Hill Place, in Surrey.
In their books: Copland: 1900 through 1942 and Copland: Since 1943, Aaron Copland and Vivian Perlis give a detailed account of the life of one of America’s most influential composers. The books are arranged similarly to the Shostakovich biography that our class reviewed earlier this semester. That is, through personal accounts by Copland himself along with accounts of Copland’s friends and acquaintances, the authors manage to paint an accurate and interesting picture detailing the life of the great composer. When combined, the two books recount Copland’s entire life, dividing it into two periods for the purpose of easier organization and reading.
Kaplan, Jon. "Dumped!: Famous and Not-So-Famous Rejected Film Music." Film Score Monthly 8.9 (2003): 24-31. IIMP. Web. 6 Dec. 2010.
In Elia Kazan’s On the Waterfront, the musical score had a huge impact on the success of the film. The composer of the film, Leonard Bernstein, was known more in the world, rather than in the film industry, yet he offered his own unique twist that introduced new techniques in into the scene of musical scores. Bernstein sought to incorporate various techniques into the musical score that would define his signature style, American nationalism, while supporting the major themes of the film as well.
After listening to all four movements of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 in C minor, I have suddenly been awakened to the tremendous influence that the Classical Form of music has had on modern day works, especially in the area of the film industry which it is used to create drama, tension, and joy. History owes a debt of gratitude to composers such as Ludwig van Beethoven, who build upon the legacy of pioneers such as Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to create his own unique blend of symphonic compositions which will be revered throughout generations because of their continued appeal to the
In the study of Tennessee Willliams' plays: "Suddenly Last Summer" and "The Glass Menagerie", we can find a great deal of autobiographical connections. "The Glass Menagerie" is particularly considered the author's most biographical work. It is described by the playwright as "a memory play"; indeed, it is a memory of the author's own youth, an expression of his own life and experiences. Similarly, "Suddenly Last Summer" includes many of Tennesse Williams' real life details.
Anderson had a very strong musical education. At age eleven he began piano lessons and music studies at the New England Conservatory of Music in Cambridge. At his high school graduation from the Cambridge High and Latin School, Anderson composed, orchestrated, and conducted his class song. In 1925 he entered Harvard College. While at Harvard he studied musical harmony with Walter Spalding, counterpoint with Edward Ballantine, canon and fugue with William C. Heilman, and orchestration with Edward B. Hill and Walter Piston. Between 1926 and 1929 he played trombone for the Harvard University Band. He eventually became the director of the Harvard University Band for four years. In 1929 Anderson received a B.A. magna cum laude in Music from Harvard. The magna cum laude is the next-to-highest of three special honors for grades above the average. He was also elected into Phi Beta Kappa. Anderson continued into graduate school at Harvard. In 1930, he earned an M.A. with a major in music. He began studying composition with Walter Piston and Georges Enesco; organ with Henry Gideon and double bass with Gaston Dufresne of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. As well as his studies in music, he continued for his PhD in German and Scandinavian languages. He ultimately mastered Danish, Norwegian, Icel...
As stated by Robin Williams, “You’re only given a little spark of madness. You mustn’t lose it” (brainyquote.com). Robin Williams was a self-acclaimed comedian and actor. His work in many movies and his comedy shows made him an icon for people everywhere. Throughout his life he brought smiles and happiness to everyone who watched him. Exploring Robin Williams early life, career, and death can help one gain a deeper understanding of his life and struggles.
When Herrmann arrived in Hollywood in 1941, he pushed away the traditional “Hollywood sound,” that was being produced by his fellow composers, and began creating an individual composing style that was unique, simple, effective, and would set the stage for future generations of film composers.
During the modern film era, agents, lawyers, and businessmen ran the film division of the conglomerates. However, Lucas wanted to revive the studio system on his own terms because he cared about putting on a show and believed that people were ruining the film industry by mixing in business to such a vast extent. Lucas’s way of thinking is present in current films where the purpose of entertainment comes before the business practices, and the filmmakers are involved in the production and business side of filmmaking. This allows for the power of film creation to lie with the artists who create the films. For example, original movie music compositions became more widely utilized after John Williams composed original music for the Star Wars soundtrack.
This style in which he chose to base his music off of presented a positive tone to this very serious movie. The initial theme, “Coming Home,” also shows the American Nationalist style of modern music. In the film Rebel without a Cause, which came out in 1956, composer
George Gershwin was one of America's most well-known composers and respected pianists that introduced the sounds of Broadway and Hollywood together. He coordinated the elements of classical music style and the robust sounds of American jazz; Gershwin created a musical style that made the music of jazz acceptable to the classical listeners, and brought in American music into the mix. “Gershwin wrote mainly for the Broadway musical theatre.” He blended, in different variations, techniques and forms of classical music with the stylistic hints and techniques of popular music and jazz.