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damn.

TFA sounds fantastic! Reference quality recording and performance!

TFA OST Still great! Great track-to-track flow and sound quality.

I always looked at "Adventures of Mutt" as a nice, extroverted mini-overture where JW poured some fun in writing virtuosic Indy-styled jottings for the whole orchestra. While not his best piece ever, I always liked it for what it is--a nice little symphonic bon-bon that works great as a concert opener or as a lively intermezzo.

Live recording from the European first performance on May 28, 2016 at the Tivoli Concert Hall, Copenhagen. Toke Møldrup, solo Tivoli Copenhagen Phil Lawrence Foster, conductor Out of curiosity, Foster was the chief conductor of the Gulbenkian Orchestra, in Lisbon, for many years.

Rey's Theme definitely personifies the maturity of JW's current output. He's long transcended the concept of "film music," but his concert pieces now transcend the films for which they are written. Their level of complexity, the depth of orchestration, the precision of his writing, he simply doesn't waste a note. Personally, I don't believe Williams could write a piece like Rey's Theme even ten years ago. It's a work that reflects his stature and experience, without an inch of cynicism or the seeming ease of the bombastic writing he traditionally revels in with this series (see March of the Resistance). Suffice to say, I might actually be anticipating The Last Jedi even more than I was The Force Awakens. Williams is now building off his solid base of musical foundations, alongside a director whose output surely ranks as some of the most promising of any young modern filmmaker.

wow, lots of music there It's missing the complete animated soundtrack though.... Really disney should have released it as part of the Legacy Collection, now would be a good date for it... Seriously...why so many films get deluxe expanded (and pricewise-cheap) soundtracks while Star Wars does not ...

Disc: 1 1. Overture (Alan Menken) 2. Main Title: Prologue Pt. 1 (Alan Menken) 3. Aria (Audra McDonald) 4. Main Title: Prologue Pt. 2 (Alan Menken) 5. Belle (Emma Watson, Luke Evans, Ensemble) 6. How Does A Moment Last Forever (Music Box) (Kevin Kline) 7. Belle (Reprise) (Emma Watson) 8. Gaston (Josh Gad, Luke Evans, Ensemble) 9. Be Our Guest (Emma Thompson, Ewan McGregor, Ian McKellen, Gugu Mbatha-Raw) 10. Days In The Sun (Emma Thompson, Emma Watson, Ewan McGregor, Ian McKellen, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Audra McDonald, Adam Mitchell, Stanley Tucci, Clive Rowe) 11. Something There (Emma Thompson, Emma Watson, Ewan McGregor, Ian McKellen, Dan Stevens, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Nathan Mack) 12. How Does A Moment Last Forever (Montmartre) (Emma Watson) 13. Beauty and the Beast (Emma Thompson) 14. Evermore (Dan Stevens) 15. The Mob Song (Emma Thompson, Josh Gad, Ewan McGregor, Ian McKellen, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Luke Evans, Ensemble, Stanley Tucci, Nathan Mack) 16. Beauty and the Beast (Finale) (Audra McDonald, Ensemble, Emma Thompson) 17. How Does A Moment Last Forever (Celine Dion) 18. Beauty and the Beast (John Legend, Ariana Grande) 19. Evermore (Josh Groban) BONUS TRACKS 20. Aria (Demo) (Alan Menken) 21. How Does A Moment Last Forever (Music Box) (Demo) (Alan Menken) 22. Days In The Sun (Demo) (Alan Menken) 23. How Does A Moment Last Forever (Montmartre) (Demo) (Alan Menken) 24. Evermore (Demo) (Alan Menken) Disc: 2 1. Main Title: Prologue (Alan Menken) 2. Belle Meets Gaston (Alan Menken) 3. Your Mother (Alan Menken) 4. The Laverie (Alan Menken) 5. Wolf Chase (Alan Menken) 6. Entering the Castle (Alan Menken) 7. A White Rose (Alan Menken) 8. The Beast (Alan Menken) 9. Meet the Staff (Alan Menken) 10. Home (Extended Mix) (Alan Menken) 11. Madame De Garderobe (Alan Menken) 12. There's a Beast (Alan Menken) 13. A Petal Drops (Alan Menken) 14. A Bracing Cup of Tea (Alan Menken) 15. The West Wing (Alan Menken) 16. Wolves Attack Belle (Alan Menken) 17. The Library (Alan Menken) 18. Colonnade Chat (Alan Menken) 19. The Plague (Alan Menken) 20. Maurice Accuses Gaston (Alan Menken) 21. Beast Takes a Bath (Alan Menken) 22. The Dress (Alan Menken) 23. You Must Go to Him (Alan Menken) 24. Belle Stops the Wagon (Alan Menken) 25. Castle Under Attack (Alan Menken) 26. Turret Pursuit (Alan Menken) 27. You Came Back (Alan Menken) 28. Transformations (Alan Menken) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MRS3N6M/

I think the problem with the piece is the name "Adventures of Mutt". It's not a concert arrangement of a theme for Mutt (he doesn't really have one), its a concert arrangement of one of the cues that make up The Jungle Chase, in the same vain as "The Forest Battle" from ROTJ, "Abandoned And Pursued" from ET, "The Duel" from Tintin, etc.

I've always preferred the thematically similar The Others.

Yes, although Unbreakable is certainly a respectable second for me. Signs always felt like his most complete and most satisfying in terms of pure filmmaking.

I only have a passing interest in the works of Desplat, but I'm always excited at the prospects of a huge score, especially for a space opera.

I got that email too, so I pulled the trigger on some other things. All for a cool savings of less than $10. But hey, I'll take it.

I'm a little in between. I've always enjoyed it and remember having fun listening to it a lot when it first came out, but I also think compositionally it's a tad on the clumsy side for Williams...not the biggest fan of the repeating "rapidly descending scale" thing that finishes the intro and pops up here and there motivically. The piece does pretty much keep up its manic energy for 3 minutes, though, and a lot of the orchestrations are fun in and of themselves of course. I like the basic nuts and bolts of the theme but it does wind up still feeling unfinished, like an unused sketch from his Hook notes that he always liked and was just messing around with. I guess he was going for spontaneity, maybe? It sorta works, but something's missing.

Apologies! And happy belated birthday!

Slobowhat? Of course I talked about worldwide known ensemble. By example, when Simon Rattle conducts The Berliner Philharmoniker for live performance and plays only the Main Theme... It's annoying at the end to have pretty much always only the theme being played and recorded. But in another hand, a Suite for Schindler's exists and artists still record only the theme... I guess this is the lot of film composers... They can't force the artists to play their suites or arranged stuff... at the end, they play the little part they want to play, even if it's only 4-5 minutes in lenght.

Agreed. Frankly Williams needs the LSO to actually make his music seem like it's any good. Desplat could get another Oscar just by recording a fart in a bath tub!

Please Varése, remaster this so that it doesn't sound so digitally shrill.

This will be the score Rogue One should have been!

Great album!

My own conclusion is that its primarily 'Han's Theme' It makes its first appearance when Luke and Han are on their Hoth recce. We as an audience have been so swept with the romantic-tragic arc of the story that we have taken it for granted that it was the Love Theme. In my opinion, It's used as a dramatic device for the budding romance between Han and Leia which is great as it works great in that context. Williams inter played specific themes for different dramatic sequence in the Trilogy. We get Leia's theme when Ben Kenobi dies in A NEW HOPE and Yoda's Theme makes a heroic appearance during the Luke and Vader's duel in EMPIRE. The 'Han Solo and The Princess' cue on the Gerhardt album is fantastic but its an 'intercourse' of both Han's theme and Leia's Theme. Both the character's themes are distinct in this cue. Both musical motives fight for dominance starting with a foreplay (where they introduce each other and leading to the final musical climax) And Lets also not forget that Leia's theme was basically to support the supposedly love between Luke and Leia for A NEW HOPE. until EMPIRE, but we always thought it was her character theme and stayed pretty much through out the series.Williams was using his themes a dual device all along interchanging to suit the dramatic moments. While Williams acknowledges this album greatly in the liner notes, I don't know for sure if this 'Han Solo and The Princess' Concert version was an original piece by Williams or arranged exclusively by Gerhardt and approved by Williams himself ?

When romance meets Elgar

Netflix will release the film in 2019 Apparently a deal with Paramount was deemed too risky and fell through. Pretty huge news, really does seem to be where the film industry is pointing for auteurs.

Elliot Goldenthal might've actually made me interested in these movies

Why? Karol

Awesome. Can't wait for this. Karol

So what you are saying is that TLJ needs a doomsday device of its own so it can be seen as being different from ESB.

Exactly. Casino Royale did it in '06, we don't need it again. With the possible exception of Ewan McGregor as a 60s-set 007, that list is idiotic. James Bond is an English, white, straight, MALE secret agent who has to kill in the line of his duties and likes the ladies and the finer things in life. And if the inclusivity snowflakes don't like that, they may want to first consider that audiences around the world of all ethnic backgrounds have been able to enjoy the adventures of the English, white, etc. Bond for over 50 years before fucking off and watching something else.

uhhh OK. Well, Google Translate says:

I have UNDER FIRE on not very often but whenever i do, i pray to the gods to bestow upon us another composer of Jerry Goldsmith's caliber.

Rambo III begs to differ. That's what I've been saying. Then perhaps it's Leia's perception of Han? It certainly seems to be pretty consistently applied to Han, and that includes its appearance in TFA (where it might as well represent a love theme, but basically it's quite literally Leia thinking of Han). Here They Come! was not originally part of the suite, and does not feature in the Mehta recording. It was added to the suite afterwards by Charles Gerhardt's request.

The piece was published as part of an overall feature about film music: http://www.gramophone.co.uk/classical-music-news/this-week-inside-film-music Some nice articles there.

Bespin single-handedly sunk FSM as a label, man!

The Rhino Superman sounds more green to me, while the FSM one sounds more blue. Which one is more accurate?

The voice of NeoNeoJWfan speaks!

Tell me friend? When did JWFan abandon reason for madness?

We must join with him, bollemanneke...We must join with BloodBoal.

Many scores that were released did not deserve it. Some that deserve to be released are not. Can you release them, bollemanneke? Do not be too eager to deal out score releases in judgment. Even the very wise cannot listen to all music. My heart tells me that the House Of Cards soundtracks have some part to play yet, for good or ill before this is over. The music of Jeff Beal may rule the fate of many.

"The music in the trailer was so much better!"

GoldenEye: The second best Bond film of the last 25 years. Superior to Casino Royale Tomorrow Never Dies: Generic Bruckenheimer-lite action film with a few witty lines and the late great Vincent Schiavelli The World Is Not Enough: The Bold and the Beautiful as directed by Renny Harlin. Pure garbage. Die Another Day: An entertaining mess

Yeah, I actually did feel that, starting at 1:38 in the Overture. It sounds very Williams-esque, but as a little splash of melodic color, not like a desperate "I gotta be the new John Williams!!!". It reminds me of how I can listen to, say, War Horse and recognize RVW while not feeling that the music is just doing that. John is a clear influence here, but Marcus captured that moment in his piece without feeling like he's going after a particular score. It's confident, feels like it comes from the heart. I might even say it's got the magic. It feels like a pleasant and appropriate detour in its context, anyway, and then he has the good sense to musically let the piece go its way naturally off of it, colorful and interesting in its own right, and circle back to the idea. Other less apparent "Williamsy" colors pop up here and there in the other movements too, I suppose, but it's all carefully expressed within the overall piece. It's good music is what it sounds like. A pleasure to listen to. Wonderful, Marcus!

A very fine piece! And, an example of how to not be a Williams imitator. Marcus' love for John is obvious in how fully he's absorbed what his music is about into his own psyche, not through the dutiful reproducing of various surface details and mannerisms that so many others are guilty of.