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Even while his already-

ascended star was still rising

in 1980, John Williams found himself

with big shoes to fill. The iconic

conductor Arthur Fiedler, who over

his nearly 50-year tenure as music

director of the Boston Pops had made

that orchestra a household name, had

died in the summer of 1979, and while

the famed Hollywood composer (and

onetime session pianist) Williams was

holed up in a London sound studio

that winter, diligently working on the

score to the much-anticipated sequel to

Star Wars

, he was named the successor

to Fiedler with the Pops. “The legend

of Arthur Fiedler looms large,” said

Williams. “The world knows him as

a beautiful-looking man who made

orchestra music immensely popular. But

the vastness of his reputation among

professional musicians and the depth of

his musical knowledge were even more

impressive.” At the time, the

Washington

Post

observed that the Boston Pops had

earned the right to call itself “the best-

known orchestra in the world,” between

its record sales in the tens of millions

and its regular summer and Christmas

concerts series, tours, and television

appearances, and that Williams’s success

in Hollywood nearly matched that

record for mass acceptance, albeit with

the suggestion that “he has become no

more a household name than most other

successful film composers.” Whether or

not that was true at the time, 40 years

on, if you were to ask any passerby to

name just two film composers, the first

mentioned is unlikely to be anybody but

John Williams.

As he took the post, Williams

commented that he hoped “to give film

music more prestige” by presenting

the best of it with the Boston Pops. Of

course, some of the best of his own

film music was still to come. In 1981, he

reteamed with director Steven Spielberg,

with whom he worked on

Jaws

, his

second Oscar-winning score, for

Raiders

of the Lost Ark

. The theme he created

for central character Indiana Jones, later

dubbed the “Raider’s March,” became

one of the most recognizable themes

in film history. The following year, the

composer and director worked on the

film that would earn Williams his fourth

career Oscar,

E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial

,

itself widely hailed as one of the greatest

movies ever made. At the beginning

of August, both films will be shown at

Ravinia while the Chicago Symphony

Orchestra plays the scores live. When

Williams first brought the Boston Pops

to Ravinia on July 21, 1985, he included

excerpts from his

E.T.

score, as well as its

forerunner,

Close Encounters of the Third

Kind

, on the program. He also included

several selections from Bernstein’s

inimitable music for

West Side Story

and the first Ravinia performance of “A

Simple Song” from Bernstein’s

Mass

,

which will receive its first complete

performance at Ravinia and by the CSO

on July 28 as the centerpiece of this

year’s celebration of Leonard Bernstein’s

centennial.

After making his Ravinia debut in 1985, John Williams returned with the Boston Pops in 1992 as well as in

1994, 1998, and 1999 to conduct the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

July 21, 1985

33 YEARS AGO

ON THIS DATE

JULY 9 – JULY 22, 2018 | RAVINIA MAGAZINE

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