John Williams: Nikita Koshkin - Usher Waltz (From the Royal Alcazar Palace) Part 6/9 

Oh, it's always astonished me how he can make the most difficult pieces look absurdly easy. Look at some of the others on RU-vid playing the composition and you can see how rushed they look by comparison. I think that effortless playing style goes to the heart of why some people habitually like to question his playing as lacking passion - of course it's going to look more passionate when others have to play in a more frenetic style due to being pushed to their limits. I've listened to and watched John Williams play for over fifty years, and I can't ever recall seeing him play a piece that taxed his abilities to a point where he looked even remotely strained trying to stay on top of it. His technique is just that good, which should hardly come as a surprise when, like Mozart, he was trained by a musical father from childhood. I'm as much a fan of rock music as I am of classical in all its various forms, yet I always shake my head when arguments turn to the greatest guitarist in the world, with the usual names like Hendrix, Vaughan, Page, etc being tossed about - it's laughable, given how Williams is on another planet to them in terms of technical ability. It's the same when it comes to ridiculous lists that the likes of Rolling Stone put out - they'll vaguely drop in Segovia as a nod to the classical guitar, and the likes of Joni Mitchell to give women their due. But John Williams, arguably the greatest player to ever to put his hands on a guitar? They'd just get confused and think you're referring to the film composer. The only knock on John Williams is that he's just so good that you almost want to break his fingers if you're an aspiring guitarist. He inspired me to take up the classical guitar when I was young, yet despite years of study, practice and playing I realized I was never going to get anywhere near the heights of his playing, and in the end it was so disheartening that I stopped. Knowing that very few people could even approach his level didn't give much comfort, or render an acceptance for something less - his was the bar that had been set. In hindsight it was rather silly of me, as I set myself an unrealistic vision of where I wanted to get to with the instrument.

i saw him live 3 times in the 1980s and met him backstage in huddersfield uk where he signed an album i’d taken along. in my opinion the greatest guitarist of the his generation and in terms of perfect technique, the other guitarist i listened to loads was bream, who although different technically was inspirational in terms of tone production and emotional playing.

This is true. Only problem is, some people hear with their eyes and miss how much musical shape and variety he injects, because he’s not swaying about making faces.

I want that too, wy better than this one.

@@MiguelitoPlanet Way more views too :)

@@MiguelitoPlanet What made the original video better? I never got to see it.

@@kristijanpavlovic In this one they cut part of the intro, as well there is a part where the audio has a glitch. The other was perfect.

Late to the party, but I was wondering that, part of the intro has been cut out. All the original pieces have been taken over by wocomoMusic with their annoying intro. Sods.

What?😂😂😂😂

Mediocre??!??!

Si decir que jonh William tiene una interpretación mediocre no sabes nada de nada. Uno de los mejores concertistas en la historia de la guitarra Clásica, le debemos mucho a jonh William, me encantaría saber cuál es tu aporte, más alla de solo criticar. Saludos señor mediocre.