Mike Cole confessed himself "baffled by the extreme hostility expressed on
this list towards John Williams, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Henryk Gorecki and a
few others, " but not towards other composers of film music such as Copland
and Vaughan Williams.

Williams is a successful composer of film music and it's easy to tick off
Korngold, Prokofiev, Walton, Shostakovich, etc as you listen to his music.
Somebody recently provided a list of Williams' more serious compositions.
The only one I know of to have been recorded in recent years is his bassoon
concerto which I've heard but recall nothing of.  I heard his flute
concerto at a concert and disliked it intensely, as music, not because
Williams wrote it.  Lloyd Webber writes the sort of music I avoid - it's
a genre I just don't think is worthwhile - and the only halfway serious
LW composition I know of, his Requiem, is a strange mixture of styles.  I
liked the Gorecki 3rd enough to buy it but I haven't played it for years.
Part of its initial success was due to its use in a French film, Police,
starring the ubiquitous Gerard Depardieu.  I've tried other Gorecki but I
think he's a one work wonder.

These opinions don't reflect extreme hostility.  I recognise that each the
three gentlemen appeals to an audience on an emotional and musical level,
but it rarely, if ever, connects with me in that way.  Copland, Vaughan
Williams and so on were well-known as CM composers before they wrote for
film.  Whether they were better at writing for film than Williams is
another matter.  I imagine that Williams would like to be known as a
respected CM composer but it isn't going to happen.

Richard Pennycuick
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