Well well well, it looks like I've called your bluff.

This song sounds nothing like India Jones!

And in this one, the similarities to India Jones are superficial:

It reminds me a bit of Jerry Fielding, but not Williams.

What happened to my youtube clip? Did Admin remove it for corrupting children? Let's try again:

And that ain't no bluff--that's a solid "GOTCHA."

I'm not sayin' there's a gotcha there, but don't you think that's an awful lot of Stravinsky for something attributed to someone else?

I really don't see Williams' movie scores are any worse than Korngold's. Having just spent several long car journeys with my kids sitting in the back watching Indiana Jones, the music is pretty good. Hugely derivative, but so is Korngold.
(The music is fantastic compared with the dialogue!).


And the Indiana Jones theme isn't stolen from a cigarette ad - it is pretty much taken in its entirety from the opening of Strauss' Don Juan.


One other thought: the Star War trilogy is based loosely on Wagner's Ring cycle (removing all references to incest and socialism obviously, and with hugely diminished psychological insight) and Williams' score does a good job of sounding Wagnerian. Darth Vader's leitmotif has to be one of the most instantly recognisable pieces of music of the 20th century.

Great memorable themes - however stolen.

Here's the opening to Don Juan:

You could do worse than to be stuck listening to John Williams on a long car trip. In fact you could do much worse; I'll even say you were lucky. But you could also do better.

It's clear that both Williams and Korngold owe and enormous debt to Strauss, but if I had to choose one of the 3 for my long car trip, Williams would be 3rd choice.

Impossible to disagree with that assessment. Next time I visit my mother, I'll take you rather than my three sons.


On the way back we had Yellow Submarine twice in a row. Rather better than Williams or Korngold, but second to Strauss. Although by the time we got to Hey Bulldog the second time around I was kinda wishing for something less relentlessly melodic and cheery.


There need to be more films with soundtracks by Strauss. I think the opening to Also Sprach Zarathustra would be great for a sci-fi film.

I've got that particular "Star Wars" music.

While granting that Korngold was influenced by Strauss, Korngold cannot be said to have been looking to the past, as John Williams was. Korngold was already a famous composer before WW-I, which makes him almost a contemporary of Strauss, and the influence may have been in both directions.

Williams can sound very stirring and sonorous, but compared to Korngold, I think he sounds somewhat plodding, while Korngold sounds agile and light on his feet.

The opening of "Seahawk," for example, is a variation on a song that is sung by erroll Flynn's hardy band toward the end of the film. The tune itself is nothing special, but it does have some tricky timing in the 3rd line, and as embellished in the orchestral rendition that opens the film, the twists and turns are a constant surprise. You never know what's coming next. And it's played by brass instruments as a stirring fanfare, but the embellishments make it more virtuosic than any other fanfare I can think of.

I think Korngold wrote the kind of music John Williams wished he could write.