Human beings love to categorize things. Putting things into “boxes” designated as this or that is a skill that develops early in childhood and allows us to make sense of a confusing world. Cats are different than dogs; squares are different than circles. Adults continue categorizing: Introverts are different than extroverts; type A people are different than type B; and, for decades, film music was different than art music. Composers were put into boxes as writing music that was either media-related or for the concert hall, with the unspoken assumption that “concert music” was somehow superior. As with everything, though, the truth is always messier than we like to admit, and the number of composers whose music can be heard in both arenas is continually growing.
Filmmakers have coopted art music to use in their films for decades. Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey utilized music from Johann Strauss, Jr., Richard Strauss, and György Ligeti. Director Oliver Stone used Samuel Barber’s searing Adagio for Strings in Platoon in 1986, and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 plays a major role in director Tom Hooper’s 2010 film The King’s Speech. Then, some “classical” composers began to tinker with composing film music—Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copland, and Erich Korngold top that list. Today, we are blessed with a new group of film composers whose music is breaching traditional boundaries and providing audiences with exhilarating and deeply moving experiences, both in the theater and the concert hall. Chief among these “boundary smashers” is the legendary John Williams.
Today, it is not only the striking 13 concertos and other orchestral works that Williams has composed, but also his film music that is increasingly being heard and appreciated in the concert hall. Williams’ extraordinary score to the 1977 film Close Encounters of the Third Kind was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Score in 1978 (losing to another Williams score, the original Star Wars), and the Los Angeles Philharmonic first recorded a condensed orchestral suite that same year. The score quickly attained special admiration for the skillful way Williams contrasts the alien world with our own, positioning atonality and dissonance opposite tonality and melody, until the two tonal worlds merge. At the center of both the complete film score and the suite is an iconic five-note motif that Williams penned as the film’s signature theme. Even if you have never watched the film or have not seen it in decades, chances are that this five-note “calling card” will be instantly recognized. The motif was designed to serve as the method of communication between the aliens and humans in the film. Ending on the fifth degree of the scale, it was purposefully structured to sound “unfinished,” as if to invite a response from the alien visitors.
The orchestral suite opens with eerie, dissonant tone clusters in the violins, leading to menacing rumbling in the brass and low strings. Danger is most definitely lurking, and Williams uses atonality to enhance the sense of terror. The anxiety grows as woodwinds and percussion dart frantically overhead and the brass continue to growl. The strings begin racing as if to escape, and a thunderous gong adds to the melee as the alien ship lands. Dissonant music and seemingly random bursts of sound eventually give way to a lush string melody as the grandeur of the spacecraft is revealed. The first statement of the five-note motif is heard in majestic horns and harp as the first attempt at communication is made. This leads to a glorious melodic sequence of the kind that has become a John Williams trademark. Celebratory brass intone the five-note theme, heralding the dawn of a new era. Eventually the celebration subsides as the craft departs, and we are left with only the five-note motif rising into the heavens alongside.
However you want to categorize this music, it is most assuredly profoundly moving. The sonic battle between the “dangerous” world of atonality and the reassuring comfort of Williams’ soaring melodies is food for thought, even without a giant spaceship. Perhaps we are best served, however, to abandon the idea of categorizing music at all and just revel in the genius of an extraordinary composer who has gloriously refused to “stay in his lane” for over 60 years.
Program notes by © Betsy Hudson Traba 2025