John Williams: The Berlin Concert (2022) - full transcript

Thank you very much!

Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen,

for being with us tonight

here in this magnificent hall,

which is like a house of magic.

And I want to tell you

what a privilege it is for me

to be here with you in this hall,

standing in front of perhaps

the world's greatest orchestra:

the Berlin Philharmonic.

To be standing in front of this orchestra

for any musician, however humble or great,

to be here with you for these few moments

is truly a great honour and a privilege.

And I'm so grateful for this

invitation to be with you.

I have never been to Berlin before.

I've always wanted to visit the City.

It is incredibly beautiful.

I'll just give you a couple of impressions.

The weather has been gorgeous

these early autumn days, we've had sun.

And driving around the City, we see

people on bicycles and actually walking.

In Los Angeles you don't walk.

There are freeways and cars,

that's all we have.

The city is so alive in its present.

And you have the great history of the area

in these magnificent buildings

and monuments.

I walk in the Tiergarten, and I see all

the little children with gorgeous faces.

And I think, well, the future of this

place is going to be fantastic and bright

if we all do our jobs very well.

It's a fantastic place.

And I'm very happy and also honoured

just to be here in your midst.

To the music:

here's a little suite from Far and Away,

which is a film some years ago

with Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman.

So you'll hear in this little suite

an atmospheric theme

that describes the County Galway in the

time of 1892, when the film was staged.

And then there's some action music

which begins as a kind of a dance

which the village fiddler will lead us.

And the orchestra will join in, all of us,

a little bit later.

Then, of course, a love theme for the

two young people played by Torn and Nicole.

And then finally the donnybrook,

and the donnybrook is the comedy fight.

And when you hear the cellos and basses

rumble over here

with all their notes and strength,

that's the beginning of the donnybrook.

Here is Far and Away.

Thank you so much.

Here are three pieces from Harry Potter.

I'm happy to find that it was

as popular in Germany as elsewhere.

These amazing books and movies

have been said

to have been the greatest British export

since the Beatles,

which could be true.

Here are three little pieces.

The first one is Hedwig's music.

Hedwig was the lovely white bird

that delivered the mail to the Muggles,

you may remember that.

And the second little movement

is “Nimbus 2000”.

Nimbus 2000 was the...

I don't quite know how to describe it,

the stick or the pole

that Harry rode on very quickly

so he could play quidditch all over

the field. That is the Nimbus 2000.

And that piece of music

is only for woodwinds.

So you will hear all manner of flutes

and oboes and clarinets here

in the orchestra playing brilliantly

the Nimbus music.

And finally “Harry's Wondrous World”,

which is a sonorous theme

that was used to depict Harry's friendship

with his little friends, and so on.

So you have “Hedwig's Theme”,

“Nimbus 2000” and “Harry's Wondrous World”.

Thank you so very much.

Here are three pieces from Indiana Jones.

We have already made

four Indiana Jones films.

And, as we speak, in London

Harrison Ford is now shooting the fifth one.

I think that's good news.

Because when I leave Berlin, I will

go back to Los Angeles in a few days

and begin to write the score

for the fifth Indiana Jones.

So we have no resting.

The first of the three pieces is

“Scherzo for Motorcycle and Orchestra”.

But you will not see a motorcycle

on the stage.

But the title is the poor composer's

feeling... I'll explain to you...

This is a scene in the movie

with Sean Connery and Harrison Ford.

They're on a motorcycle and

they're being chased by the bad guys.

The piece you're about to hear is the piece

I wrote for the choreography of that chase.

And then, a few months later, I went

to the movie theatre to watch the film.

The motorcycle chase came along

and all I heard were motorcycles.

I didn't hear the orchestra at all.

You can imagine the composer's

bruised vanity.

So it's a treat for me to play it

for you with this orchestra

without the distraction of the film

and the noise of the motorcycle.

And that's followed by “Marion's Theme”:

Karen Allen in the first film,

who was so great

in the action sequences as well as comedy.

And then finally “Raiders March”.

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.

Next is a piece called Elegy.

And it will feature our cellist,

or your cellist, Bruno Delepelaire.

I am delighted to have him

do this piece for me.

I wrote it a number of years ago

for two lost children.

An elegy, as you know,

can be a wish or a prayer

for condolences and the like

to assuage the grief

of people who have lost.

But it can be other things.

It can be a wish and a prayer

for wholeness and forgiveness.

These emotions...

of all the instruments we have

are often best expressed by the cello.

I love the instrument,

and I've written for it every time

I have had an opportunity to do it

because I love the instrument

so very much.

I hope you will enjoy it. Elegy.

Here are three pieces

from the Star Wars collection.

The first one is “Adventures of Han”.

A very active piece for the orchestra.

Second piece is “Yoda's Theme”,

which goes way back.

And thirdly the processional

and finale of the first film.

We have the processional in the

throne room, which you may remember,

and then the end credits of Star Wars.

So here's “Adventures of Han”,

“Yoda's Theme”

and the finale to the first Star Wars film.

Thank you so much.

Here is “Princess Leia's Theme”.

And this is the issue:

George Lucas, who many of you

remember or know,

was the author of Star Wars

and the creator of all of this.

And he's the kind of a man

that never spoke very much.

So, when we did the first film,

none of us working on the film were told

that there would be a second film

or a third film.

So I looked at the film

and I looked at Luke and Leia,

Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher.

They played their comedy scenes

and action scenes together very well.

I didn't expect another movie

to come along.

So I imagined that in later life

they might be lovers,

maybe create a family, who knows?

So I wrote a love theme, which I played

for them, and it was in the film.

And George said nothing.

And two years later, I discovered

that they were brother and sister,

and the real love theme

belonged to Han Solo and the princess.

So that next film had yet another theme.

This is the first one when I had no idea

that they were siblings

and expected them to grow

into a kind of love affair.

Here is the original piece.