John Williams. Music for Films, Television, and the Concert Stage

Once mostly considered a commercial composer and a mere rewriter of previous composers’ styles, only recently Williams’ music has begun to be taken seriously, and scholars from the music and the film departments have begun to produce research in the form of books, journal articles, conference papers, and Ph.D. theses. The present volume seeks to build upon, complement and review what has been written so far on Williams. This volume is a large exploration of the many sides of Williams's output, aimed at showing the range of his production (not merely focussing on film music) and at analysing the depth of his dramaturgic and compositional skills with selected case studies. To accomplish this exploration – which has not the pretence of exhaustiveness but certainly that of being an accurate survey possessing both latitude and depth – a large team of international scholars has been assembled from all around the world. The contributors come from film, media and music departments – to provide a variety of disciplinary perspectives on Williams's work.