Donald Satz writes:

>Getting back to Williams for a moment, I'll gladly concede that the music
>for Star Wars is "perfect" for the movie.  That doesn't make it worthy to
>stand alongside the masterful works of Stravinsky, Shostakovich, Britten,
>et al.

As I sit here holding my original "Star Wars" album, something I haven't
held in my hands since I was 13, (in 1976), I will try to remain
objective....

If there is one thing John Williams can claim credit for it is this:
He introduced my my young ears to the wonders of the Romantics and
Post-Romantics.  His music was the stepping stone *to* Stravinsky,
Shostakovich, Britten, et al..

I grew up in a small town in CA with only 14,000 people and no record
boutiques with elitists telling me what I sould listen to.  I had an Air
Force Base Library at my disposal and I picked out music based upon 1)
the picture on the album cover, (remember the CBS Bruno Walter Mahler
Resurrection with the nebula on the front cover?), and 2) whether or not I
thought it might sound like "Star Wars." (Certainly "The Planets" might!)

Star Wars was the first movie where I actually noticed that there *was*
a music score, and what a grand score it is.  Surely it is derivative,
but it is wonderfully descriptive, and at home I could employ my visual
memories from the movie to make sense of, what was then, intricate music.

No one knows the exact day that he or she learned to walk, speak, or
read--one can't list the multitude of previous events and experiences that
eventually lift a person high enough to be touched my one of the greats,
like a Mahler or a Brahms--but I do know that John Williams was a major
stepping stone for me and probably many other imaginative 13 year olds
back in '76.

John Smyth