You don’t need to be a film buff to know John Williams’ music. He has scored a staggering array of Hollywood hits, from the Star Wars franchise to Harry Potter, via Schindler’s List, ET and Lincoln. Now almost 92, he’s been nominated for more Academy awards than anyone except Walt Disney.
Williams’ other compositions are a different matter. Despite featuring at Barack Obama’s inauguration and various Olympic ceremonies, his numerous concert works are rarely heard in the UK.
No surprise, then, that the Royal Festival Hall was stuffed for this mostly Williams programme from the London Philharmonic Orchestra. As Jonathon Heyward launched into the opening fanfare of Williams’ Superman March – his debut with the orchestra; what a beginning – audience members around the stage visibly leaned in. This was the Williams we know and love, poised and precise as the theme motors along, the lyrical moments positively melt-in-the-mouth.
There were traces of that composer in the UK premiere of his Violin Concerto No 2: in the placement of a flute solo, the shape of a horn interjection, the froth of cymbal at a phrase’s peak. But we weren’t in Hollywood any more. Many passages involved sustained bass pedals or circling patterns over which an atonal descant was dropped. The third movement developed from spiky, angular jabs from the soloist into a kind of lopsided dance. Frequent cadenzas riffed on cliches of showy violin technique – double-stopping, arpeggiation, ferociously rapid passagework. Played by violinist extraordinaire Anne-Sophie Mutter (for whom it was written), the concerto was compelling enough – but with her astonishing technical control and absolute musical drive, Mutter could, I suspect, make pretty much anything sound irresistible.
Those who’d turned out for the other Williams film highlights – Tintin, Harry Potter et al – may have been disappointed. These were new arrangements for Mutter: exquisitely played, but increasingly schmaltzy as the encores rolled by. The violin’s new starring role demanded understated playing from the orchestra – odd in music where such power comes from symphonic surround-sound. Only in the vicious syncopations and loose-limbed solos of Bernstein’s Symphonic Suite from On the Waterfront did Heyward and the LPO relocate their mojo, vivid details fizzing.