The Baton: A John Williams Musical Journey

The 90th episode of "The Baton" highlights the return to the melodic theme composition styles that made John Williams famous in the 1970s and 1980s. With "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone," Williams creates no less than seven new themes for the main characters and the title stone that causes so much trouble. Host Jeff Commings details all seven themes and their appearances in the score, inclu...

John Williams' score to "AI Artificial Intelligence" has a cold and detached feeling for most of the film, mostly using synthesizers to depict the life of a robot boy who wants to become human. But, some of the best moments in the score come when Williams unleashes the organic strength of the orchestra, in scenes such as David's abandonment in the woods or the arrival to Manhattan. But, one of the...

For the final time in his career, John Williams stepped in as replacement composer, this time for the Revolutionary War action film "The Patriot," starring Mel Gibson in a role very similar to the one he played in "Braveheart" five years earlier. Though the film is largely fictional, the war setting provided John Williams with some great opportunities to write music for instruments of the time. Bu...

Though two composers had won Oscars for their scores on previous Alan Parker films, the director didn't reach out to them to write music for his first straight nonmusical drama in almost 10 years. Neither Giorgio Moroder or Michael Gore would have fit the mold for the music needed for "Angela's Ashes," based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir by Frank McCourt. John Williams had read the book and...

Fans were going crazy in anticipation of the return to the Star Wars galaxy with the release of "The Phantom Menace" in theaters. How would John Williams' score reflect that we are getting a lot of new characters while also keeping us musically grounded in the familiar? Though Williams used the main theme in the opening crawl, he decided to create a lot of new thematic material, including a bold c...

The story of John Williams' hiring to write the score for "Stepmom" has been the cause of rumor and hearsay for more than two decades, since the involved parties have never spoken publicly about how Williams came to replace Patrick Doyle as composer after Doyle supposedly turned in a complete score. Host Jeff Commings details the many rumors that have circulated in 22 years, and provides some excl...

Just about everyone involved in the production of the World War II epic "Saving Private Ryan" was tasked with pushing the envelope in terms of what could be seen and heard onscreen -- except composer John Williams. Director Steven Spielberg and Williams made the wise decision to keep music out of the key battle scenes, and even other key scenes that would have normally used music, to keep us immer...

With the beautiful mezzo soprano voice of Pamela Dillard and the stately trumpet playing of Tim Morrison in his arsenal, John Williams delivered a score for "Amistad" that feels like the Maestro wrote two different scores for one film. One part of the score features tribal African percussion rhythms accentuated by Dillard vocalizing the main theme, while the other features an Americana flavor for...

Brad Pitt took on another foreign accent for his 1997 true-life drama "Seven Years in Tibet," telling the story of an Austrian mountain climber captured during World War II who takes refuge in Tibet and befriends a young Dalai Lama. Pitt's accent wasn't the only misfire of the film. Director Jean-Jacques Annaud butchered John Williams' score, taking many of the cues featuring famous cellist Yo-Yo...

The second half of 1997 felt like 1993 all over again, as Steven Spielberg and John Williams were working together on another dinosaur movie and another historical drama. First up was the sequel "The Lost World: Jurassic Park," in which Spielberg advised Williams to take the score in an entirely different direction from the wildly popular original 1993 film. And Williams obliged with his most prev...

When jazz composer and renowned trumpet player Wynton Marsalis was unable to write a score for "Rosewood" that suited director John Singleton, John Williams was brought in to compose music that would fit the mood of the film. And he created one of his most underrated scores for the true story of an all-black town burned to ashes during a riot started by a neighboring all-white town. Williams wrote...

John Williams collaborated just once with Oscar-winning director Barry Levinson, writing a different score for "Sleepers" than he had composed in just about any of his 77 previous films. The music for the tale of four boys whose prank goes horribly wrong has a very modern and slick feel, relying more on synthesizers than he had recently. Host Jeff Commings talks about his surprise at learning Will...

The 1995 film "Nixon" was the third and final collaboration between director Oliver Stone and composer John Williams. The film presents a fractured story of Nixon's rise from humble beginnings in California to the presidency. That uneven presentation likely hampered Williams' ability to paint -- musically speaking -- on the canvas Stone presented him. The film features strong themes, from the main...

We've approached a new chapter in John Williams' career: the post-Golden Age era when the films he chose were not always of superior quality but still gave him the chance to write mostly memorable music. Host Jeff Commings is joined for the third time by Gianmaria Caschetto to discuss the breezy score to "Sabrina" that gave Williams the opportunity to reach back into his jazz roots, as well as his...

Host Jeff Commings presents his longest solo episode to date, discussing the Oscar-winning score to the 1993 drama "Schindler's List." It's 13 minutes longer than the amount of original music Williams composed for the 192-minute film. In addition to discussing the often-told backstory of Williams' reluctance to accept the job, you'll learn about the three locations in which the score was recorded...

Host Jeff Commings counts the score to "Jurassic Park" as the gateway to becoming a John Williams fan, and he's joined by David Kay to talk about the aspects of the score that introduced a generation of people to Williams' music. They talk at length about the rousing fanfare that plays at the introduction to the island where the bulk of the action takes place, as well as the uncharacteristically g...

It was a natural and easy decision for John Williams to agree to write the score to "Home Alone 2: Lost in New York" since the original film was so successful and garnered much praise for the Maestro's score. But, was his enthusiasm still there when he saw that the sequel was pretty much a rehash of the original in new locations? The answer seems to be a resounding yes. Though there are many music...

John Williams had really hoped to take a break from film scoring in 1992. But when Ron Howard approached him about writing music for the tale of two Irish settlers in America, the Maestro could not say no. He realized his chance to write Irish music for a film about the Irish had finally arrived. That film is "Far and Away," starring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. Host Jeff Commings is joined by Co...

The story behind the creation of John Williams' score for Oliver Stone's "JFK" is just as compelling as the score itself, an eclectic mix of styles that included a percussion-heavy theme for those believed to be involved in the plot to assassinate John F. Kennedy. That theme was so influential that it was copied by many composers in the years that followed, including Williams. Join host Jeff Commi...

The journey to bring "Hook" to the big screen was a long one -- 16 years, to be exact. It started out as a Steven Spielberg project in 1985, and was to be a retelling of the classic story … with Michael Jackson in the lead role! There was also a plan to make the story into a musical, an idea that stayed with Spielberg when he officially started work on it in 1990. John Williams brought on lyricist...

John Williams planned to take a break from film scoring in the second half of 1990 to work on a concerto, but fate brought a screening of the comedy "Home Alone," and Williams could not resist the film about a boy who protects his house from burglars after his family accidentally takes off for Paris without him. The Maestro came to the project after Bruce Broughton had to step away due to scheduli...

"Presumed Innocent" was a hot commodity in Hollywood, with several studios putting up big bucks for the film rights. Alan J. Pakula and Frank Pierson fashioned a decent film adaptation from a novel seemingly difficult to translate to the big screen, and Harrison Ford does well to shed his Indiana Jones image ... with the help of a new hairdo. For those who have not seen the film, it might be best...

John Williams had three film scores released in 1990, and each one presented different musical styles that continued to showcase Williams' ability to write music for any genre. He composed the score for "Stanley & Iris," his final collaboration with director Martin Ritt, in early 1989 after finishing work on "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade." This score is almost the polar opposite of his work...

Steven Spielberg dipped into the romance genre with "Always," a remake of the 1943 Spencer Tracy film "A Man Named Joe." It seems like Spielberg rushed this film through post-production to get it into theaters before the Patrick Swayze film "Ghost," which featured many similar plot points. The seemingly rushed post-production likely affected John Williams, who wrote a score that is hard to grasp a...

John Williams' fifth foray into the war film genre was "Born on the Fourth of July," featuring a somewhat restrained score shortly after his work on "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade." His score features two haunting themes, one for strings and another for the trumpet. Tim Morrison, the principal trumpet player for the Boston Pops at the time, made his film score debut with a gorgeous performanc...