Great Composers of the World: From Ordinary to Genius

The first artist that will be discussed is one of my favorites, John Williams, He has orchestrated and created the musical soundtracks to some of my favorite movies in history. He is one of the most well-known and accomplished American composers. he has served as music director and laureate conductor for the Boston Pops Orchestra, and he maintains thriving artistic relationships with many of the world’s great orchestras, including the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Williams has received a variety of prestigious awards, including the National Medal of Arts, the Kennedy Center Honor, the Olympic Order, and numerous Academy Awards, Grammy Awards, Emmy Awards, and Golden Globe Awards. He remains one of America's most distinguished and contributive musical voices.

Williams has composed the music and served as music director for over one hundred films. His 40-year musical partnership with director Steven Spielberg has resulted in many of Hollywood’s most acclaimed and successful films, including Schindler’s List, E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, Jaws, Jurassic Park, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, four Indiana Jones films, Saving Private Ryan, Amistad, Munich, Hook, Catch Me If You Can, Minority Report, A.I.: Artificial Intelligence, Empire of the Sun, The Adventures of TinTin and War Horse. Their latest collaboration, The BFG, was released on July 1, 2016. Williams has composed the scores for all seven Star Wars films, the first three Harry Potter films, Superman: The Movie, JFK, Born on the Fourth of July, Memoirs of a Geisha, Far and Away, The Accidental Tourist, Home Alone, Nixon, The Patriot, Angela’s Ashes, Seven Years in Tibet, The Witches of Eastwick, Rosewood, Sleepers, Sabrina, Presumed Innocent, The Cowboys, and The Reivers, among many others. He has worked with many legendary directors, including Alfred Hitchcock, William Wyler, and Robert Altman. In 1971, he adapted the score for the film version of Fiddler on the Roof, for which he composed original violin cadenzas for renowned virtuoso Isaac Stern. He has appeared on recordings as pianist and conductor with Itzhak Perlman, Joshua Bell, Jessye Norman, and others. Mr. Williams has received five Academy Awards and 50 Oscar nominations, making him the Academy’s most-nominated living person and the second-most nominated person in the history of the Oscars. His most recent nomination was for the film Star War: The Force Awakens. He also has received seven British Academy Awards (BAFTA), 22 Grammys, four Golden Globes, five Emmys, and numerous gold and platinum records.

While working on the original Star Wars trilogy soundtrack, Williams's initial influence for the sound direction and feel that a space fantasy like Star Wars should have, came from Gustav Holst’s work on sci-fi-inspired music and sounds. Particularly his work “The Planets” gave the sound direction Willams was needing for the infamous imperial march and Vaders theme in the original Star Wars Movies.

Born in Cheltenham in 1874, Gustav Holst had professional musicians stretching back three generations in his family giving him an early start and interest in musical arts. Gustav hoped to be a pianist but was prevented by neuritis. He said that his right arm felt 'like a jelly overcharged with electricity'. At 12 years old, Gustav took up the trombone. Five years later, he was appointed organist at a Gloucestershire church. He also conducted a local church choir, providing him with more experience. In 1892 Holst wrote the music for an operetta in the style of Gilbert and Sullivan. The piece was performed at Cheltenham’s Corn Exchange and was well received. Its success encouraged him to persevere with composing, despite his father's reservations. Holst studied composition at the Royal College of Music under Sir Charles Villiers Stanford, pictured. He wrote piano and organ pieces, songs, and a symphony. His main influences were Mendelssohn, Chopin, Grieg, and above all, Sir Arthur Sullivan. Later, like many musicians of his generation, Holst became an ardent Wagnerite. Unable to support himself by composition alone, Holst played the trombone professionally. In 1897, he even played under the baton of the composer Richard Strauss The two teaching posts for which Holst is probably best known were director of music at St Paul's Girls' School, from 1905 until his death, and director of music at Morley College from 1907 to 1924. In 1913, St Paul's opened a new music wing, and Holst composed his St Paul's Suite for the occasion. The new building contained a sound-proof room where he could work undisturbed. Holst was often inspired by literature. He made settings of poetry by Hardy and Whitman. He also took an interest in ancient Sanskrit texts, particularly the Rig Veda hymns. His settings of translations included Sita, a three-act opera based on an episode in the Ramayana, and Savitri Holst was a keen rambler. In 1908 he traveled to Algeria on medical advice. The trip inspired his suite Beni Mora, which incorporated music he heard in the Algerian streets. In June 1911, Holst and his Morley College students gave the first performance since the 17th century of Purcell's The Fairy Queen. The full score had been lost soon after Purcell's death in 1695 and had only recently been found. The Times praised Holst and his performers for 'a most interesting and artistic performance of this very important work'. The first performance of The Planets was given on 29 September 1918 to an invited audience including Sir Henry Wood and most of the professional musicians in London. Five months later, Sir Adrian Boult introduced The Planets to the general public, at a concert in February 1919, but he gave only five of the seven movements on that occasion thinking they would not be able to cope with the full work. It was not until the international success of The Planets that Holst became a well-known figure. A shy man, he did not welcome this fame and preferred to be left in peace to compose and teach. A lot of his musical influence stemmed from two individuals in his life. The first was Ralph Vaughan Williams who was a lifelong best friend and would regularly critic and influence each other’s musical compositions. The second was When Holst studied under Sir Arthur Sullivan becoming a skilled composer himself and understanding much of what led to his creation of “The Planets”

Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan, born May 13, 1842, in London, England died November 22, 1900. He is best known for his series of 14 operatic collaborations with the W. S. Gilbert, including works as H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado. Sullivan composed 23 operas, 13 major orchestral works, eight choral works and oratorios, two ballets, incidental music to several plays, and numerous hymns and other church pieces, songs, and piano and chamber pieces. The best known of his hymns and songs include 'Onward Christian Soldiers' and 'The Lost Chord'.

The son of a military bandmaster, Sullivan composed his first anthem at age eight. He was selected as a soloist in the boys' choir of the Chapel Royal. The Reverend Thomas Helmore, the choirmaster had encouraged Sullivan and arranged for the publication and performance of his early compositions. In 1856, the Royal Academy of Music awarded the first Mendelssohn Scholarship to 14-year-old Sullivan, allowing him to study first at the Academy and then in Germany, at the Leipzig Conservatoire. His graduation piece was a suite of incidental music to Shakespeare's The Tempest. When it was performed in London in 1862, it was an immediate sensation. Sullivan began his composing career with a series of ambitious works, composed of hymns, parlor ballads, and other light pieces. Among his best-received early pieces were a ballet, L'Île Enchantée (1864), and his Irish Symphony, Cello Concerto, and Overture in C (In Memoriam) (all in 1866). From 1861 to 1872, he supplemented his income by working as a church organist and as a music teacher.

In 1866, Sullivan composed his first one-act comic opera, Cox and Box, which is still widely performed. His most successful orchestral work, the Overture di Ballo, premiered in 1870, and the next year he published a song cycle, among other works. Sullivan's talent and native charm earned him many friends in musical and social circles, including Queen Victoria's son Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh. Also, in 1871, Sullivan wrote his first opera with W. S. Gilbert, Thespis. The two then went their separate ways, and Sullivan produced his Festival Te Deum (1872), an oratorio, The Light of the World (1873), and other pieces, including incidental music for West End productions of several Shakespeare plays. He also had conducting and academic appointments. In 1875, however, producer Richard D'Oyly Carte reunited Gilbert and Sullivan to create a one-act piece, Trial by Jury, which became a surprise hit. Their 1878 opera H.M.S. Pinafore became an international sensation, as did The Pirates of Penzance (1879) and Patience (1881). Many of Sullivan’s works and compositions were influenced early in his life by German composer Richard Wagner and the operas he created which brought influence into many of Sullivan’s opera works and structures.

Wilhelm Richard Wagner was born on May 22, 1813, in Leipzig, Germany, and went on to become one of the world's most influential and controversial composers. Richard Wagner was famous for both his complex operas, such as the four-part, 18-hour Ring Cycle, as well as for his anti-Semitic writings, which, posthumously, made him a favorite of Adolf Hitler. There is evidence that Wagner's music was played at the Dachau concentration camp to 're-educate' the prisoners. Wagner's parentage is uncertain: He is either the son of police actuary Friedrich Wagner, who died soon after Richard was born or the son of the man he called his stepfather, the painter, actor, and poet Ludwig Geyer (whom his mother married in August 1814). As a young boy, Wagner attended school in Dresden, Germany. He did not show aptitude in music and, in fact, his teacher said he would 'torture the piano in a most abominable fashion.' But he was ambitious from a young age. When he was 11 years old, he wrote his first drama. By age 16, he was writing musical compositions. Young Wagner was so confident that some people considered him conceited. The New York Times would later write in its obituary of the famous composer, 'In the face of mortifying failures and discouragements, he apparently never lost confidence in himself.' Wagner attended Leipzig University in 1831, and his first symphony was performed in 1833. 

He was inspired by Ludwig van Beethoven and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, which Wagner called 'that mystic source of my highest ecstasies.' The following year, in 1834, Wagner joined the Würzburg Theater as chorus master and wrote the text and music of his first opera, Die Feen (The Fairies), which was not staged. In 1836, Wagner married the singer and actress Minna Planer. The couple soon moved to Königsberg, where Wagner took the position of musical director at the Magdeburg Theatre. There, also in 1836, Das Liebesverbot was produced, with Wagner writing both the lyrics and the music. He called his concept 'Gesamtunkstwerk' (total work of art)—a method, which he frequently used, of weaving German myths with larger themes about love and redemption. After moving to Riga, Russia, in 1837, Wagner became the first musical director of the theater and began work on his next opera, Rienzi. Before finishing Rienzi, Wagner and Minna left Riga, fleeing creditors, in 1839. They hopped on a ship to London and then made their way to Paris, where Wagner was forced to take whatever work he could find, including writing vaudeville music for small theaters. Wagner was part of the quasi-revolutionary 'Young Germany' movement, and his leftist politics were reflected in Rienzi; unable to produce Rienzi in Paris, he sent the score to the Court Theatre in Dresden, Germany, where it was accepted. In 1842, Wagner's Rienzi, a political opera set in imperial Rome, premiered in Dresden to great acclaim. The following year, The Flying Dutchman was produced to critical acclaim. Considered a great talent by this time, Wagner was given the Prussian order of the Red Eagle and appointed director of the Dresden Opera. In 1845, Wagner completed Tannhäuser and began working on Lohengrin. In 1848, while preparing for a production of Lohengrin in Dresden, the revolutionary outbreak in Saxony occurred and Wagner, who had always been politically vocal, fled to Zurich. Unable to enter Germany for the next 11 years due to his political stances, Wagner wrote the notoriously anti-Semitic Jewishness in Music, as well as other criticisms against Jews, composers, conductors, authors, and critics. He also wrote Opera and Drama and began developing what would become his famous Ring Cycle, which consisted of four separate operas tied together by leitmotifs, or recurring musical themes which link plot elements. The Ring Cycle was ahead of its time in that its combined literature, visual elements, and music in a way that would anticipate the future of film. Film composers, including John Williams, were inspired by Wagner's use of leitmotifs. His work would later influence modern film scores, including those of the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings film series. After meeting and falling in love with Mathilde Wesendonck, the wife of Otto Wesendonck, Wagner was inspired to write Tristan and Isolde. His interest in Wesendonck, coupled with other events in his life, eventually led to his separation with his wife, Minna.

In 1862, Wagner was finally able to return to Germany. King Ludwig II, a fan of Wagner's work, invited Wagner to settle in Bavaria, near Munich and supported him financially. Wagner didn't stay long in Bavaria, once it was discovered that he was having an affair with Cosima, the wife of the conductor Hans van Bülow, and Franz Liszt's illegitimate daughter. Bülow, who apparently condoned the affair, directed Tristan and Isolde in 1865. Wagner and Cosima had two children together before finally marrying in 1870. The first two operas of The Ring Cycle, Das Rheingold and Die Walküre, were presented in Munich in 1869 and 1870. The Ring Cycle was finally performed in its entirely all 18 hours in 1876. Wagner completed his last opera, Parsifal, in January 1882, and it was performed at the Bayreuth Festival that same year

As referenced before Wagner’s early influence in musical composition was from that of Beethoven and his symphonic works made a lasting impression on Wagner throughout his life and creations.

Beethoven was born on or about December 16, 1770, in the city of Bonn in the Electorate of Cologne, a principality of the Holy Roman Empire. Although his exact date of birth is uncertain, Beethoven was baptized on December 17, 1770. As a matter of law and custom, babies at the time were baptized within 24 hours of birth, so December 16 is his most likely birthdate. However, Beethoven himself mistakenly believed that he was born two years later, in 1772. Hoping that his young son would be recognized as a musical prodigy Wolfgang Mozart, Beethoven's father arranged his first public recital for March 26, 1778. Billed as a 'little son of 6 years,' although he was in fact 7, Beethoven played impressively, but his recital received no press whatsoever. Meanwhile, the musical prodigy attended a Latin grade school named Tirocinium, where a classmate said, 'Not a sign was to be discovered of that spark of genius which glowed so brilliantly in him afterwards.' 

Beethoven, who struggled with sums and spelling his entire life, was at best an average student, and some biographers have hypothesized that he may have had mild dyslexia. As he put it himself, 'Music comes to me more readily than words.' In 1781, at the age of 10, Beethoven withdrew from school to study music full time with Christian Gottlob Neefe, the newly appointed Court Organist, and at the age of 12, Beethoven published his first composition, a set of piano variations on a theme by an obscure classical composer named Dressler. By 1784, his alcoholism worsening and his voice decaying, Beethoven's father was no longer able to support his family, and Beethoven formally requested an official appointment as Assistant Court Organist. Despite his youth, his request was accepted, and Beethoven was put on the court payroll with a modest annual salary of 150 florins. When the Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II died in 1790, a 19-year-old Beethoven received the immense honor of composing a musical memorial in his honor. For reasons that remain unclear, Beethoven's composition was never performed, and most assumed the young musician had proven unequal to the task. However, more than a century later, Johannes Brahms discovered that Beethoven had in fact composed a 'beautiful and noble' piece of music entitled Cantata on the Death of Emperor Joseph II. It is now considered his earliest masterpiece. Beethoven is widely considered one of the greatest, if not the single greatest, composers of all time. Beethoven's body of musical compositions stands with time. Beethoven composed his most beautiful and extraordinary music while deaf is an almost superhuman feat of creative genius, many of composers have drawn inspiration from Beethoven’s works all the way up to John Williams's film music scores. The music structure and flow, the emotions they want the score to produce, and the message that it is displaying all call back to Beethoven’s works.

Bibliography

1. “Ludwig Van Beethoven.” Biography.com, A&E Networks Television, 6 Nov. 2019, https://www.biography.com/musician/ludwig-van-beethoven.
2. “Richard Wagner.” Biography.com, A&E Networks Television, 13 Aug. 2019, https://www.biography.com/musician/richard-wagner.
3. “Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan.” geni_family_tree, 3 June 2017, https://www.geni.com/people/Sir-Arthur-Seymour-Sullivan/6000000010129576405.
4. The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. “Arthur Sullivan.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 18 Nov. 2019, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Arthur-Sullivan.
5. Turner, Brad. “The Classical Cues That Inspired John Wiliams' Music For 'Star Wars'.” Colorado Public Radio, Colorado Public Radio, 30 June 2019, https://www.cpr.org/show-segment/the-classical-cues-that-inspired-john-wiliams-music-for-star-wars/.
6. “John Williams: Biography.” John Williams | Biography, http://www.johnwilliams.org/reference/biography.
7. “2. Falling in Love.” Gustav Holst (1874–1934) | 2. Falling in Love, http://www.gustavholst.info/biography/index.php?chapter=2.