An Open Letter to John Williams

Dear Mr Williams

First, may I say that I have enjoyed your recordings and playing for many years. However, I recently bought your 1993 video The Seville Concert/John Williams: A Film Profile, and I was astonished and saddened by many of the things you said on there. Firstly, there is your idea that the guitar is in need of “a rethink in the way it is constructed”; you cite Greg Smallman as someone who is undertaking this challenge and give the impression that the guitar really doesn’t work as a musical instrument. I cannot possibly agree with this. While Mr Smallman is undoubtedly a great guitar maker and you, as a fellow Australian, are very proud of his work, he is not the only great guitar maker currently producing instruments. There are Kevin Aram, Simon Ambridge, Tony Johnson, Paul Fischer and many more from England; Hermann Hauser III and Dieter Hopf from Germany; Manuel Contreras II, Amalia Ramirez, Paulino Bernabé, Vicente Carrillo and more from Spain; Gregory Byers, Robert Ruck, Kenny Hill and others from the US, not to mention the various Japanese makers. How then is it that Mr Smallman has some kind of monopoly on what is good in Luthiery? Additionally, I’m not convinced that your statement “the guitar in due a rethink…” is even true. In my view there is nothing wrong with the way that guitars have been made for decades, and they produce a beautiful, sonorous and musical sound.

Next, there is your assertion that the guitar has no repertoire. I’m sorry to say that this is just plain wrong. My own efforts as a player and a listener have shown me that there are currently in excess of 1,100 solo works on CD at the present time! Not to mention the hundreds of other compositions that I have been unable to find recorded. Then, there are duets, trios, quartets and pieces for guitar with other instruments (violin, flute, voice etc). How can an instrument with thousands of works to its credit have no repertoire? You may well say that a lot of these are arrangements from other instruments and that is true. But this is also true of the repertoire of the piano, which borrows extensively from earlier instruments such as the harpsichord, and from orchestral reductions. By that logic, the modern grand piano would be limited to works from 1830 onwards, whereas the guitar could go back to 1770. I don’t understand your thinking here.

Next, you have expressed boredom with the very repertoire that you claim is so poor. OK, maybe that is consistent, but why? What is so bad about developing one’s technique through the challenge of the masterpieces of the instrument? You say that you would rather teach through the medium of ensemble playing and avoid solo repertoire. Wouldn’t this be rather like a piano teacher refusing to teach Chopin, Beethoven, Liszt, Rachmaninov and Mozart in favour of using the piano to accompany singers and violinists? I don’t really understand this approach and it is contrary to everything that I was ever taught.

Now, finally, there is your attack on Maestro Segovia. This, more than anything else, is what got me to write this letter. Your tone when referring to him is cruel and disrespectful in the extreme. He, as you well know, was responsible for the guitar becoming the serious concert instrument that it is today. He, more than anyone, inspired composers to add to the repertoire, got the instrument noticed and accepted and generally devoted his life to it. How can you say he was wrong and that his continued influence is a bad thing for the instrument, especially after all he did for you?

In closing I would just like to say that I am disappointed by your apparent hatred of the instrument that has brought you so much wealth and fame, and through which you have entertained the world, and you really seem to me now like a man who would rather have devoted his life to something else.

Yours sincerely

Gary Ormond