I’m truly stunned by the still-spreading wildfire ignited online by a recent article in The Guardian that ran under the headline “John Williams: ‘I Never Really Liked Film Music Much.’” The more responsible papers and websites to pick this up have also included the contextual quotes within that article, which I participated in as a subject but did not write, but all of the headlines are some variation of “John Williams Admits He Doesn’t Like Film Music,” or a rephrasing even more provocative.

It’s unfair to the great man. It makes him sound glib or ungrateful or bitterly resentful — and he is none of those things.

And as someone partly responsible for this mess — I’m the author of a new biography of Williams, and the recipient of those quotes he gave — I want to try and clear it up. Williams, 93 years old and still composing music, should be left alone and left to do his more important creative tasks.

It’s true that he said to me, “I never liked film music very much.” This was in the context of some 20-odd interviews he gave over the course of 18 months — and in that particular conversation he was specifically talking about the complicated role of putting film music on a concert program in a symphony hall. He told me that, when he was music director of the Boston Pops from 1980 to 1993, he struggled with the logistical task of programming music that had been expressly written for movies.

This is uncontroversial: it’s practically impossible just to plop down the sheet music for any given film cue (the basic singular unit in film music) onto a conductor’s podium. The written music — which is often scribbled with many changes and edits on the stand in a recording studio — has to be revised and “engraved” for a proper concert performance, then copied for each individual musician. Not only that, to Williams’ broader comments cited in the Guardian article, this music was almost always composed to suit the needs of a particular scene, and is thereby necessarily created in brief fragments, without a concert-ready starting or stopping point, so it has to be rearranged or cobbled together by an arranger into some kind a suite.

Now, beyond the matter of logistics, Williams admittedly spoke often with me about the inherent limitations and weaknesses of film music as an art form, especially in relation to the great classical repertoire. Film music, he says, has to be in a simpler language, more economical, less distracting. It’s meant to go under dialogue and sound effects. It’s subservient to the needs of the movie, of the editor’s splices, of the director’s engineering and overall vision. Whereas music written purely for the concert hall is the main attraction — moving at its own pace and designed to be technically impressive, dazzling, complex, or just beautiful for beauty’s sake.

But let me be clear about what Williams wasn’t saying (in my humble opinion, of course).

He was not saying that he isn’t proud of his own work, or that he regrets spending a lifetime scoring films. It’s true that he has his insecurities and self-doubts, like any true genius. He doesn’t think highly of himself, and he often feels like he could have done a better job. He doesn’t revisit the films he scored for pleasure, and he generally doesn’t like to look back at all. But he’s also aware of how universally beloved his music is, and how so many people have a kind of spiritual connection to it — and he is grateful and gracious in response. He has also continued to score films into his 90s, as well as programmed it in hugely popular concerts on a yearly basis for more than 40 years, around the world. He clearly finds it worthy of his time and attention.

He also was not deprecating “modern film music,” as I’ve seen some reports imply. If anything, he was specifically talking about the body of film music that existed up through his tenure at the Pops some 30 years ago. But he was speaking more broadly, not that “everything today sucks.” The truth is, Williams doesn’t watch films and doesn’t listen to film scores. Yet, he even said many optimistic things to me about how modern and future composers may take the art form somewhere new and unexpectedly wonderful, and he hopes for that.

Another clarification: Williams has not turned senile and cranky. These are not the bitter rantings of an old man. He is one of the brightest minds and sunniest dispositions I have ever come across. He is kind, gracious, modest, and a true gentleman. He doesn’t speak ill of others. The fact that this comment has been lifted out of its context and spread like an imprecation or hate mail on his part would likely make him very annoyed or upset. That’s just not who he is.

For any part I’ve accidentally played in his comments being misrepresented, I apologize. There is much truth in that Guardian article, which I encourage you to read in its entirety. Williams is a more complex, paradoxical, fascinating person than most people realize, and I hope my book illuminates his unique personality and worldview.

But the thesis of my book is that this man perfected the art of scoring films, elevating and ennobling it to its greatest heights — becoming the most successful and beloved film composer of all time — and that he then went one step further, and brought it into symphony concert halls around the globe, winning over audiences, musicians, and even conductors such as Gustavo Dudamel and many others. His music is now frequently performed by every major orchestra, deeply enjoyed by the players, and resoundingly popular among patrons young and old. His music is even used in high-level auditions for new orchestra musicians.

Whatever internal conflicts he feels about his own life’s work, his own profession — his music speaks volumes about its own merits, worthiness, and beauty. We would do well to listen to it.

Tim Greiving is an arts journalist and the author of the forthcoming biography John Williams: A Composer’s Life, which arrives in September from Oxford University Press.