This is one of the most familiar and often-heard of all compositions by the popular film composer John Williams—or at least the first thirty second or so of it are.

In 1985 the News Department of NBC, one of the leading three commercial networks in the United States, sought to update its sound and image with some important cosmetic changes. Among these was the commissioning of a suite of short pieces to serve as musical cues, including the theme for its flagship program, the NBC Nightly News, to replace one composed in the 1960s by Irwin Bazelon and used every night since then.

Williams responded with a theme that has become the most identifiable in all of American television. The concert version, lasting about three and a half minutes, expands on the music heard as NBC's theme: A staccato violin pattern oscillating around a repeated note suggests the bustle and rapid flow of news and a brief melodic pattern that rises in six notes and then descend in three—these three notes marked with bells.

The bells served to link the new theme subliminally with NBC's longest-running and most traditional "logo"—an audio trademark going back to the early days of radio, when NBC announced itself by a live playing of a three-note pattern on chimes. Williams alludes to this famous signature motto only in his use of a three note pattern and inclusion or orchestra bells, for the original NBC chime is a pattern of a leap up and a short fall down, while Williams's pattern traces those same notes in downward steps only.

On nights when the theme is played long enough, the audience has a chance to hear at least the first few notes of a broader theme which itself also ends with an "NBC-like" three-note pattern. In the concert version there is a darker-sounding rhythmic middle section, then the conclusion recombines and expands on the two main motives of the piece, using the version of the theme that Williams wrote for closing programs.

The main problem the piece has its very overexposure. Anyone in the United States who hears it pretty much knows by heart everything that will happen aside from the rarely-heard middle section, which is there more for contrast than for its own musical value. Thus the piece has lost all power to surprise and delight. A pity, for if heard by fresh ears this piece would disclose the imaginative way in which Williams transcended the limits inherent in writing a TV news theme and wrote a composition that is really quite original and effective.



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