Carnegie Hall

Carnegie Hall’s executive and artistic director—and former cellist in the London Symphony Orchestra—reflects on his time recording John Williams’s music and his relationship with the composer-conductor.

John Williams brought the music recording for the first Star Wars film to the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) while I was still a cellist in the orchestra. Today it is hard to imagine there was ever a time when no one had heard of Star Wars! In those days, film music recordings were made with a large screen behind the orchestra on which the movie was shown to enable the conductor to coordinate the music with the film. Nowadays, the conductor has a small screen that only they can see, so the thrill of seeing the film unfold as you play and record the music has sadly now vanished.

We all used to spend every recording session both playing the music and trying to watch the film out of the corner of our eyes, even though the dialogue was of course silenced for these music recording sessions. However, as is the case with almost all movie soundtrack recordings, John recorded the music in short sections of perhaps one to five minutes—and completely out of order—so we had absolutely no sense of the story. Although we were all blown away by the music, it never occurred to any of us that we were playing a part in movie history; on the contrary, we all wondered who would ever go to see the film as it just looked like a kids’ movie!

Once the movie was finished, George Lucas very generously arranged a private London screening for everybody in the UK involved in making the film, including the orchestra musicians. Because the screening was free, almost every player attended, but without great expectations. All the more extraordinary then that at the end, the cinema exploded with applause; everyone was totally blown away by every aspect of the film.

From that day onwards, there was not a Star Wars film or, for that matter, any film involving John Williams’s music that anyone in the orchestra would ever have missed, even if they were at death’s door. The thing that to this day amazes me about John’s film music scores is that you only need to hear the first fragment of the music and the film appears before your eyes. He has a magical ability to capture the essence of a film from the first note of music.

In addition to recording the music for almost all the Star Wars films, the LSO recorded the music for the Raiders of the Lost Ark and Superman films and for E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, so John became a central figure in the LSO’s history. Despite being the number-one music composer for almost everyone, including George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, John has remained extraordinarily humble.

This was demonstrated by a story he once told about himself, related to when Steven Spielberg asked him the write the music for Schindler’s List. Steven showed John the film, and at the end John was totally overcome and said: “Steven, this is an incredible film, but you need a far greater composer than me to write the music.” He told us Steven’s reply: “I know John, but they are all dead!” We all know that John wrote the music and created one of the greatest film scores ever written.

I remember another occasion when we were recording a film score with John, although by that time I was managing the LSO and no longer playing in it. The orchestra rehearsed the first number, but before they began to record it, the recording manager asked everyone to wait while he made a phone call. When he got through to the person he was calling, he held his phone up so that they could hear the music and gave John the signal to start recording.

At the end of the take, I asked who it was on the phone. “The Boss!” It turned out that Steven Spielberg insists—no matter where he is—that he always wants to be called, any time of the day or night, so that he can hear the first music of every film that John makes. That sums up the reverence in which John is held by everyone who works with him.

Clive Gillinson, Carnegie Hall’s executive and artistic director since 2005, oversees development of artistic concepts for all Carnegie Hall presentations, management of the world-renowned concert hall, and operations of Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute, which develops wide-reaching music education programs for people in New York City, nationally, and internationally. Mr. Gillinson began studying the cello at the age of 11. After graduating from London’s Royal Academy of Music, he became a member of London’s Philharmonia Orchestra and, later, the London Symphony Orchestra, where he was also a member of the self-governing orchestra’s board of directors. In 1984, he became the LSO’s managing director, a position he held for more than 20 years. Among his many accomplishments in the arts, he was awarded the Commander of the British Empire in the 1999 New Year Honours List and was appointed Knight Bachelor in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List 2005—the only orchestra manager ever to be honored with a knighthood.

Photography: Williams conducting The Philadelphia Orchestra by Jessica Griffin, Williams and the LSO in 1977 courtesy of Lucasfilm Ltd.