A John Williams Celebration - Interview with Itzhak Perlman

I remember the first time when John called me up and he was saying to me it's hockey says I'm doing this music score for a film called Schindler's List and I said I'm tell me a little bit about it you know he and he just gave me a little synopsis about it and he says I hear a violin that's what I hear he says when you play that and I said to myself well I don't know let me think about it I actually thought about it instead of just saying yeah I'll do it you know I it took me a few hours to to realize you know what it was that he was talking about and then I always kind of I said to myself I wonder what he is going to do because you know after all this it's John Williams who wrote et wrote star wars you know I mean that's with and what would he do with the Jewish theme and he was quite amazing you know and then I looked at the score and I and I played the music and it was such an amazing experience and I can tell you and then wherever I go around the world it doesn't matter whether it's in the Far East or whether it's in South America or whether it's in the United States they asked me to play the thing from Schindler's List that's you know that's like the the only piece and it's and everybody gets so engrossed in this in this piece and it's a you know it's a very simple tune but John just did something to it that gave it this feeling of an emotional happening and and that's that's more power to into to the way he composes it's amazing but one of the things about the way the music was used in the film Schindler's List is that it was not only the cut where it was used when it came to to to actually what was happening but there were many places where there was no music at all which made such a dramatic impact so then when the music comes in it's so much more meaningful you know I always tell my students I said you don't always have to worry about what you play but the spaces the pauses and and there's nothing more dramatic or intense than to hear a pause between pieces of music and I think that in putting the music for Schindler's List there were a lot of pauses and just let the people concentrate on what was happening on the screen and then the music came in and it made it so much more meaningful well you know that John Williams won his first Oscar for his adaptation of the Jerry box music of Fiddler on the Roof and what's fascinating me again is that he had to deal with stuff that was already written so I think that what I'm playing which is a cadenza with some of the themes is is all John you know where he actually you know used the music that was already there and made it something of his own something a little more personal again it's totally successful it has the flavor of you know shall I say the Jewishness of the play you know of the music so it's again it's one of those things where you really are amazed at an ability of a composer not just to write the notes but to give the flavor to the notes depending on what there is on the screen

Channel: CMajorEntertainment

Views: 14,206

Rating: 4.9741936 out of 5

Keywords: Itzhak Perlman (Musical Artist), John Williams (Composer), Schindler's List (Soundtrack), Fiddler On The Roof (Award-Winning Work)

Id: BGIvOn2HQdI

Length: 3min 44sec (224 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 30 2015