John Williams at the BBC

[Richard Tarleton]

Maybe - it was always Williams first for me. I've always loved the precise naturalness of JW's playing, letting the music speak for itself (imo).

For me, it was in large part a question of what he and Bream played. Some overlap in the core repertoire (and their duet repertoire obviously ), but JW's repertoire choices and musical interests/directions increasingly took him in directions which didn't much interest me (and I'm not talking about Sky, which I barely heard). He himself said that Bream's 20th century repertoire didn't do it for him. I don't think he ever played the Britten Nocturnal for example. Bream was my first guide into the 16th-17th C plucked repertoire. So it's not really an either/or - they kept their tanks off eachother's lawns!

[cloughie]

I don't find so - as I said in my post

I was talking about Gould. Hope anton's still away

He'll be rejoicing over the Hangers' victory anyway!

I can't understand how so much bile has been spilled on these boards over such a gentle, highly professional talented guitarist.

[french frank]

I can't understand how so much bile has been spilled on these boards over such a gentle, highly professional talented guitarist.

Bile? Where?

[Nick Armstrong]

I can't understand how so much bile has been spilled on these boards over such a gentle, highly professional talented guitarist.

I must have missed that

I love his Barrios CD, and the Rodrigo/Villa-Lobos concertos LP (ECO-Barenboim) was part of my childhood.

[BBMmk2]

Julian Bream anyday, for me but JW, I don't mind all that much.....

[LeMartinPecheur]

Did John Williams ever develop stage presence??? I saw him play only the once, in Oxford Town Hall in the early 1970s.

We the audience are sitting looking at an empty stage and this guy seems to creep apologetically on at the the back, almost walking sideways. I honestly thought he was there to do some cleaning or put up some extra lighting before our soloist made his big entrance.

But no, it was JW himself. The magic started once he began to play...

[Richard Tarleton]

Did John Williams ever develop stage presence???

The following quote from Julian Bream, in My Life on the Road, provides a clue:

The other thing about John is that, for myself, I hate the idea of feeling relaxed on stage, in the way one might in one's own drawing room, playing to a few friends. But I think that is what John prefers. I think he finds the artifice of giving a concert constricts him. I mean, he always wears a nice outfit, but it's not the sort of outfit that most people wear on the concert platform....

I think he was always exactly the same whatever he was doing - his expressionless stage persona looked particularly incongruous in Sky, with his colleagues leaping about around him. But yes, it was his playing that mattered. A very private individual.

I first saw him in the Oxford Union (reagrranged for the occasion) in the late 60s. I saw him again a few months later in a venue which suited him perfectly, the small theatre in St Catherine's College.

Are we straying out of RR territory into stuff pertaining to Friday's programme, and the other thread?

[Richard Tarleton]

Thoughts on JW the performer here
[Ed Posts now moved to this thread - ff]

[Richard Tarleton]

Anyone watch this, in the end? A celebration of Williams the crossover artist. I found it pretty dire, not helped by 3 doses (one hammed up with Les Dawson, à la Morecambe and Wise) of the frightful Cavatina , a piece I never liked. As for Cleo Laine's syrupy vocals ....

It did not get off to an encouraging start - playing Cavatina on the Val Doonican Show, followed by the duet on Liebestraum - I thought at first it was a joke, like the Eric Sykes clip (which was funny ), but it wasn't. And then that ghastly rendition of Villa Lobos by Nana Mouskouri - and then JW said "The popularity of the guitar has a lot to to with me being on the Val Doonican show". Eh? Actually JW's finest moment on the Val Doonican programme was playing Albeniz Torre Bermeja, which would have done very nicely, but they didn't choose that.

Julian Bream - "I've known him since he was about 11, and he's still a complete enigma to me".

Herbie Flowers: "I had a red and blue jumper which I wore because my mum knitted it"

Of the actual classical guitar music at their disposal they chose two tremolo pieces for playing in full, which was poor programme selection - the indifferent Barrios La Última Canción and the Tárrega Recuerdos... (fair enough). I wonder what the occasion was when Antonio Pappano and the LSO played just the slow movement of the Rodrigo in the Barbican? Altogether it served to underline the "easy listening" side of Williams's output. And Pappano's "he practically wrote this piece" ranked as the second most bizarre remark of the hour (this would have come as a surprise to Bream and a number of other great guitarists who were playing it long before JW, not to mention the composer).

At least his duets with Bream provided a bit of roughage.... The one in Wardour Chapel was Granados Zambra (Spanish Dance, Op 37 no 11), I don't think they told us that....

Altogether a very disappointing programme, and not how I prefer to remember John Williams.

[french frank]

Not that I did watch it - but it does give me all the more reason to think I don't need a television if they do that the the type of programme that I would enjoy.

[Sir Velo]

Absolute garbage. If I believed in conspiracy theories I would say that the BBC is pursuing an agenda of killing interest in classical music, with programmes of this quality.

This is an example of what can be done - and used to be the norm.

[johnb]

The highlights of the programme, for me, were Eric Sykes (I had forgotten just how funny and just how clever he was) and the duos with Bream. What a contrast in playing styles: Bream wrestling the guitar to the ground versus Williams, the epitome of cool poise.

As Richard said, some of the remarks by the likes of Pappano and Clea Laine were somewhat bizarre.

[Nick Armstrong]

Anyone watch this, in the end? ...

Altogether a very disappointing programme, and not how I prefer to remember John Williams.

Yes, just now - and your post above says it all. Apart from my nerdy bit of road recognition - the stretch of motorway in the film accompanying that 'Sky' track - I was only half listening by then, saw the footage with half an eye, initially assumed it was some Californian freeway, then thought: hang on! I know that bit of road. And indeed, it's the slipway up on to the A40 from Gloucester Terrace, heading west - must have taken it about 1000 times. Then I saw the track was called Westway! So glam!

[ardcarp]

No-one has mentioned that the programme worked perfectly well without a presenter. As far as comparisons with Bream, what is all the bother? Williams performing in a classic posture (such as one would teach a guitar studemt) and not showing too much emotion in his body and facial language, Bream exactly the opposite. So, two great but different artists.

As for the programme being 'garbage', surely not? It was Williams at the BBC and it did have to have a wider appeal than to a small cabal of guitar purists.

[Bryn]

No-one has mentioned that the programme worked perfectly well without a presenter. As far as comparisons with Bream, what is all the bother? Williams performing in a classic posture (such as one would teach a guitar studemt) and not showing too much emotion in his body and facial language, Bream exactly the opposite. So, two great but different artists.

As for the programme being 'garbage', surely not? It was Williams at the BBC and it did have to have a wider appeal than to a small cabal of guitar purists.

Well said. O.k., it did not make me rush out and buy a guitar, but then I do have one (nothing special) already,which I have yet to learn to play.