“I never liked film music very much,” Williams said to The Guardian’s Dalya Alberge, “Film music, however good it can be — and it usually isn’t, other than maybe an eight-minute stretch here and there … I just think the music isn’t there. What we think of as this precious great film music … we’re remembering it in some kind of nostalgic way. Just the idea that film music has the same place in the concert hall as the best music in the canon is a mistaken notion, I think.”

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[–] dhork@lemmy.world 6 points 3 weeks ago

I mean, I kind of get it. Soundtrack music -- and particularly Williams' music -- is extremely evocative. But it is designed to be paired with scenes from a film, and add to the mood of a film. There is a lot of evocative classical music, which is just as good as setting a tone or a mood, but doesn't have the advantage of projecting a scene into your eyeballs while you listen.

So maybe it's just that Williams thinks that writing film scores is a sort of "cheat code" to getting an audience to feel something through music. Still, I don't mind listening. And isn't that the true measure of success of a musical piece, that people look forward to listening to it?