From 'Jaws' to 'Star Wars,' John Williams' memorable and masterful film scores

Movie and music fans can commune with lost aliens, dinosaurs and Darth Vader at Tanglewood in Lenox on Friday and Saturday, Aug. 2 and Aug. 3, and again on Aug. 17. Those beloved characters will light up the big screen as the Boston Pops Orchestra performs conductor laureate John Williams’ iconic music. But what is it about the composer’s film scores that make them so masterful, magical and menacing?

Conductor Keith Lockhart has more than a few ideas. Name a film with an epic Williams score — “E.T.,” “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” “Jurassic Park” — and there’s a good chance he's conducted its sweeping themes multiple times over his 29 years leading the Boston Pops.

"There are motifs — like the 'Jaws' motif, like the opening of 'Star Wars' — that may be the most recognizable music in the world,” Lockhart said.

Williams, who directed the Pops from 1980-1993, has an unmatched sense of character and dramatic timing, according to Lockhart. “John also has a deep understanding of voicing and orchestration that is as great as the great 19th-century romantic composers."

Then he echoed a sentiment from director Steven Spielberg about Williams’ crucial role in his movies. “If John's music weren't there, bicycles wouldn't fly, mechanical sharks would look like mechanical sharks, and 'Star Wars' would look like a bunch of people in a costume drama running around.”

One of the most unforgettable themes in the “Star Wars” series signals Darth Vader’s imposing presence. “It’s beyond menacing,” Lockhart said. “It actually sounds like a 20th-century version of a Wagner antihero leitmotif from one of ‘The Ring’ cycle operas.”

For Boston Pops and Boston Symphony Orchestra principal trumpet Thomas Rolfs, "The Imperial March" is one of the greatest evil movie themes of all time. "You can't hear the music without seeing Darth Vader in your mind,” he said. “That’s pretty remarkable.”

On a recent afternoon at Tanglewood, Rolfs picked up his trumpet to demonstrate how he’s invoked the dark side of the force over his 33 years with the BSO. It sounded bright and a bit lonely without the company of 100 other musicians.

“I probably played it a little prettier than I usually do,” Rolfs said afterward. "In a concert, with an orchestra, I definitely play it in a more evil way, like driven forward with intensity. It’s riveting, it’s tiring, it’s very satisfying — and it's fun.”

Rolfs admires a long list of Williams' movie melodies, including the scores for “JFK” and “Born on the Fourth of July.” He said the composer knows exactly how to get what he wants from each instrument’s voice and palette. “Through the trumpet, there's a lot of different emotions that he’s provided for us to play, from really moving, somber pieces, to heroic, to frightening.”

This brings us to: The shark. Lockhart still marvels at the lurking motif in Jaws.

“I never would have thought having a long, held E, in a seemingly placid New England bay, followed by an F, would do what it does to people,” he said, “which is send generations into paroxysms of fear.”

BSO principal bass player Ed Barker is in his 48th season with the orchestra and explained how the instrument's long, thick strings help produce the killer shark’s tense theme. “Basses are very good at depicting horror and death,” he joked.

The driving score in "Jaws" also requires demanding amounts of repetitive, rhythmic bowing. “It goes on for a long time, and it requires a lot of synapses to be fired to make that work,” Barker said. “Sometimes I'll use excerpts from that piece to teach my students how to master certain bow strokes and certain rhythms. If you can play that, you can play just about anything.”

The next generation of composers has also been learning from Williams’ scores, including 32-year-old Tanglewood Music Center fellow Nicky Sohn. “We grew up watching all these movies, so his music is just ingrained in our system,” she said. “Regardless of if you've studied the score or not, you recognize it, right? And it has an emotional impact on us.”

The magical music in “Harry Potter"— especially "Hedwig’s Theme" — cast a spell on Sohn when she was a broom-toting kid in Korea.

“John Williams has this power to communicate so freely and honestly with audiences all around the world,” she said. “I think it fundamentally comes from understanding people, and truly seeing and hearing the scenes from the audience standpoint.”

Sohn has been writing her own music for a silent film at Tanglewood that will be performed live on Aug. 18. Seeing Williams’ compositions from “Star Wars” live at the Hollywood Bowl was hugely inspiring for her.

“When you hear them live, you realize how carefully and skillfully everything's put together,” she said. “You really do hear his intentions and orchestral colors that he creates. They’re so economical, but also absolutely magical, and they work.”

While witnessing Williams’ music performed live by an orchestra is eye-opening, Sohn added audiences don’t need to go to a concert venue to experience works from the composer’s oeuvre of more than 100 film scores.

For Lockhart, that level of accessibility is rare, and it also sets Williams apart. He credits the composer with exposing the masses to complex classical music for over half a century. "If it weren't for John Williams," he said, "there are two or three generations that would really never hear great orchestral music, written by a great composer, on a regular basis."

Lockhart will be putting himself and the Boston Pops Orchestra through the paces when he conducts “Jurassic Park” live at Tanglewood, accompanied by a screening of the entire movie, on Aug. 17. Unfortunately, the 92-year-old composer isn’t able to attend the two John Williams Film Nights at Tanglewood because of health issues. Ken-David Masur and David Newman will co-conduct a cornucopia of music from Williams’ prolific career, including his timely “Olympic Fanfare and Theme” from 1984.

Of course, Williams will be missed by his fans and the orchestra, but the BSO says he’s on the mend and will definitely be there in spirit.