Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction : John Williams, composer / Emilio Audissino -- John Williams and the musical landscapes : film, television, jazz, and concert halls. A new symphonism for a new Hollywood : the musical language of John Williams's film scores / Mervyn Cooke ; John Williams : television composer / Paula Musegades ; "Catch as catch can" : jazz, John Williams, & popular music allusion / Ryan Patrick Jones ; No sharks, no stars, just idiomatic scoring and sounding engagement : John Williams as a 'classical' composer / Emile Wennekes ; John Williams's film music in the concert halls / Sebastian Stoppe -- The Williams touch : style and musical dramaturgy. The use of variation in John Williams's film music themes / Mark Richards ; The themes of Star wars : catalogue and commentary / Frank Lehman ; Star scores : orchestration and the sound of John Williams's film music / Ian Sapiro ; Orchestration transformation : examining differences in the instrumental and thematic colour palettes of the Star wars trilogies / Nicholas Kmet ; The villain's march topic in John Williams's film music / Joakim Tillman ; Musical dramaturgy and stylistic changes in John Williams's Harry Potter trilogy / Jamie Lynn Wesbter -- Case studies. Sounding an Irish childhood : John Williams's score for Angela's ashes / Laura Anderson ; John Williams and sound design : shaping the audiovisual world of E. T.: the extra-terrestrial / Chloé Huvet ; Today I'm hearing with new ears : John Williams's use of audiovisual incongruence to convey character perspective in Munich and Spielberg's historical films / David Ireland ; John Williams and the musical avant-garde : the score for War of the worlds / Irena Paulus ; Out of darkness : John Williams's Violin concerto / Tom Schneller ; Happily never after : Williams's muisical exploration of the 'controversial' ending to A. I.: Artificial intelligence / Stefan Swanson -- The performer's viewpoint. John Williams seen from the podium : an interview with maestro Keith Lockhart / Emilio Audissino, Frank Lehman ; John Williams seen from the piano : an interview with maestro Simone Pedroni / Maurizio Caschetto ; Abstracts and biographies ; Index of names.

This volume is a large exploration of the many sides of Williams's output. Once mostly considered a commercial composer and a mere rewriter of previous composers? styles, only recently Williams? music has begun to be taken seriously, and scholars from the music and the film departments have begun to produce research. The present volume seeks to build upon, complement and review what has been written so far on Williams. It is a large exploration of the many sides of Williams's output, aimed at showing the range of his production (not merely focussing on film music) and at analysing the depth of his dramaturgic and compositional skills with selected case studies. To accomplish this exploration, a large team of international scholars has been assembled from all around the world. The contributors come from film, media and music departments ? to provide a variety of disciplinary perspectives on Williams's work.