How long since John Williams last won an Oscar?

The Lebrecht Album of the Week sheds a light on the wonderful movie scores of Howard Shore, a composer far less celebrated than John Williams… now when did he last win an Oscar?

Howard Shore: A Piano Tribute (Warner)

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Here’s a statistic you may struggle to believe: 32 years have elapsed since John Williams last won an Academy Award. The most sought after composer in Hollywood since Erich Wolfgang Korngold was last accoladed in 1994 for Schindler’s List. Since then there have been French, German and British winners, and recently three statuette for the Swedish musician Ludwig Göransson who is only 42 and may yet overtake Williams’s haul of five. Alfred Newman holds the all-time record with nine.

For reasons that will soon be apparent, I have a soft spot for two film composers, the British composer of Titanic, James Horner, and the Canadian Howard Shore, who won three Oscars for Lord of the Rings. Shore’s credits also encompass The Silence of the Lambs, The Hobbit, Gangs of New York, Mrs Doubtfire and M. Butterfly – a range of topics so extensive it would have left verismo composers reaching for the laudanum.

A film composer is necessarily eclectic, the style changing with the demands of each script. Laid end to end in these piano transcriptions, the chief characteristic that emerges in Howard Shore is a gift for atmospherics and deliberately misplaced tones. This is a composer who knows his Schoenberg and his Cage, along with Miles Davis and Max Steiner. This collection of his themes is intriguing and hypnotic, with sweet surprises when the voice of Natalie Dessay and the violin of Nemanja Radulovic relieve the persistent pianism.

My affection for Shore’s music – and Horner’s – came about this way. I spent a morning with James Horner discussing tropes for the movie of my first novel, The Song of Names. James died tragically in a plane crash before the project could be realised. Howard Shore, who stepped in, made repeated visits to the Hasidic quarters of New York to immerse himself in their music, insisting on authenticity in the score he provided for the film. His poignant main theme fo my story can be heard on track 25. You won’t forget it. The arrangements here are by Dmitri Soudoplatoff. The deft and versatile pianist is Aurélien Pontier who, in three of the scores, plays a Cageian prepared piano.

NL

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