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I work in legacy fundraising/development in the orchestra sector (Basically... being in peoples last wills). A "bequest" is a portion of the last will that is conditional upon death. As he has likely had a will for some time, he probably gave them the library a long time ago, but simply hasn't announced until they gave him this award. I'm sure their development department wanted to announce it as part of the event to make sure it got press. But basically, they won't get it until he passes. It's important to save space for it though and be prepared; especially with the volume of work he has. It probably exceeds many of the great european composers in output and I'm expecting a ton of unreleased compositions he wrote out of boredom or scrapped projects. As Williams is quite the philanthropist, I'm not surprised, but also also very pleased that he recognizes that his works should be preserved properly. They'll likely be accessible by everyone barring any copyrights - though he may have released all the rights he owns in the bequest as well; which would be unprecedented. It's likely that his estate will continue collecting royalties for decades. Julliard will have the original manuscripts to study though and will hopefully scan most of them before they start degrading (I imagine some are in poor shape already) and any one who has access to any university library should be able to access. That's how most are done. The original manuscripts are often less controlled than the final stuff owned by Hal Leonard, etc. The hard part is cataloging them all, which will take a number of years, but Williams is said to be meticulously organized, so that should make things easier.

http://slippedisc.com/2018/03/just-in-john-williams-leaves-all-his-scores-to-juilliard/

Hopefully next he'll donate all his unreleased music to the John Williams Fan Network.

I like to imagine this will be every composition professor reading the JW collection...

No other living composer could have written a cue like Escape or The Spark.

How fabulous is this! I think he is donating his originals, he will keep the copies of all of them in his own library. I mean they are on paper, they can be scanned so he can have copies Also for all those idiots writing shit about him. Please! They can be as bitchy as they like. The guy has made a shit ton of money and done so doing what he loves. And BTW, when I was at Trinity College of Music in London studying post grad composition, they complained not only about Williams, but about Puccini, Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky, etc etc. Anyone who wasn't innovative or ahead of their time. I got sent out of the class one time because I argues the professor to death. He had "written" a piece called musical chairs in which any number of players would sit in a circle. One person would play something randomly and you would see how it changes as it goes around the players. So I said "I'm sorry, you want to complain about Tchaikovsky and Williams when you didn't even write a note and you call this a composition? You can't even write a toenail's worth of music of any of the composers you all like to complain about, Get a life!" It's all jealousy in the end. This man will be forever in the history books while many of his contemporaries, and pretty much all of the people who complain about him will be forgotten.

The comments on that article are cancer. I can't stand snobs who feel the need to bring out the age-old "copying" accusation every time they see Williams' name mentioned.

When i Googled coprophilia i got a picture of the Pope!

I really like Luke's Exile Theme now. When I first heard it I kept expecting to lead to something else - it seems a lot like a bridge section he might use in a concert arrangement. But I've been doing a bit of playing around with it on the piano and I keep coming back to it. The similarities with the opening 7-note figure of Rey's Theme are unmistakable; it's like he was foreshadowing this theme with her's and tapping into the mythology of the Jedi while doing so. I dig it.

Wonderfully classy move from Mr. Williams.

If anyone's curious, I did a little feature with the local Boston NPR station on The Last Jedi score and Star Wars music in general. (I actually thought I was going to be talking about all 5 Oscar Nominees, but they just wanted me to talk about SW! No problem there). They cut down about 100 minutes of me talking about the score to 13 minutes of highlights, but I'm pretty pleased with the results. And forgive me, purists, for changing one note in the Luke & Leia theme as it appears in The Spark from Db to C! I'm too used to the original (correct, I dare say ) structure of the melody at that point which uses the leading tone instead of tonic pitch. Oh well... http://www.wbur.org/radioboston/2018/03/02/music-star-wars

New music !

De Splat.

"Okay guys here's the recording sessions for every film I've ever composed in lossless 192khz 24-bit FLAC!"

No thread of this topic would be complete without Horner!! Though I love all that have already been suggested, I will also add (it gets to flight): Rocketeer Flying Circus: Avatar Jakes First Flight A little closer to reality:

Here's the original source with the full article: https://www.broadwayworld.com/article/John-Williams-to-Bequeath-Concert-and-Film-Scores-to-Juilliard-20180306

A classic and monumental move by Williams. The vast wealth of technique, approach and genius now available to students, conductors and aspiring composers is fantastic and historic. I sort of expected him to do something like this eventually. It happening now is a sobering reminder that we must relish what he is still able to contribute musically while we can.

John Williams' personality makes me want to cry at how much I adore him.

I don't think so. I just think The Force Awakens is a better packaged movie: its much better paced (the major issue with The Last Jedi) and it has better production value. While its very linear, characters like Finn and Han don't feel shortchanged: the film manages to balance all three of them, which is more than I can say for The Last Jedi; Also, while Hux, Snoke and Phasma are empty shells in both, at least they aren't so over-the-top in The Force Awakens, so I would say the acting is better, too. Also, JJ's humor is much more organic (if far too abundant) to the story, and he doesn't feel like he's lacking restraint in the way Rian Johnson does: I know originally Abrams planned another subplot in the finale involving a chase over the snowy surface of Starkiller Base, but in the end he had the nous to cut it, which is more than can be said to a lot of stuff in The Last Jedi. I don't bring him up a lot, but Chris Stuckmann knows his cinema, and he does agree with me: Revenge of the Sith is far less well packaged than either of the two, but I just appreciate the audacity of Lucas to present a Star Wars film that is an outright tragedy. Its the only one that ends with the bad guys being triumphant, and for that to happen in the last film in a trilogy is very unusual

Rambo III re-recording would make for a great combination with those discovered end titles of Rambo II. Just sayin'...

Zero! Cameron went there and filmed everything live!

Because of the temp tracking. Lol

Philosopher's Stone - Pure Williams magic all the way through, every second dripping with nostalgia and wonder. The Children's Suite would really deserve a proper release instead of the little bits on the OST, Diagon Alley is one of my new favourite JW pieces, and Harry's Wondrous World just makes so much sense and becomes so satisfying when topping it all off! Chamber of Secrets - Some of the verbatim repeats become really jarring, especially when repeated multiple times in the score, but a large percentage of the new material is bigger, darker, bolder, maybe even better than the first one.

I don't. But that can only be interesting for a finite amount of films or a certain length of screentime. Its already getting old for me, and we haven't got to IX yet. I think for general audiences, the best way to keep it fresh, is to tell spin-off stories that aren't about that conflict, but that do use it as a backdrop.

"Chlorphilia"? You're into poisonous gasses, as well?!

Exactly. The one composer that could've written something like those pieces is early 2000s-era Shore, though he's far past his prime.

Edited

And for once we agree! It's a nicely made film, possibly a cut above most stuff these days. But a pointless one as well. Karol

You're basing this on a sample size of....one? And when you say "just as lucrative"...you mean the one spin off they've had that wasn't as lucrative as the two "episodes" they've had?

DANCE OF THE WITCHES!

I asked because it's out of print.

Leaving it with an exclusive private corporation? Whatever. Go look at what Aaron Copland left at the Library of Congress, accessible to any peasant on the planet now that it’s being digitized.

Well as an archivist-in-training, I guess I know where to keep my eyes peeled for job openings.

The Bicycle Chase

THE ASTEROID FIELD No contest. End of. Lock now.

Nice. A good companion to this would be the Silva DISASTER! CD. From some place that sells CDs, I guess. Also nice. Now...any chance of John Barry's rejected score being released?

Does this count? Considering Bond does chase him and they jump off cranes 😎

hmmm, when you start giving away your most precious possessions it's not a good sign

Looks like something I might have built with my space Legos when I was six.

I saw a montage of Billy Crystal's best moments as Oscars host on Youtube the other day...guy was a genius. The song and dance numbers introducing the best pic nominees are still laugh out loud funny. Very, very little in the way of the political, and what was there was good natured. No piousness or sanctimony, just a celebration of the magic of cinema. People turn to movies because they want an escape from politics, not to be beaten over the head with it. No wonder no one wants to watch.

No, and nor should he. The reason JW's music is so hacked up in these films is because he insists on being involved so early in the process due to his age, well before the final edit is decided on. He has admitted that he can't pull the same 12 hour work days he used to, so completing a score in a 4-12 week period after the picture has been locked off is simply not possible for him anymore. That's why he didn't do the last Potter film, and it's probably why he pulled out of Ready Player One. It's wonderful that he's managed to come up with a compromise that still lets him write for these films, but the directors shouldn't be expected to sacrifice the best possible edit of their film just to keep JW's music whole. He is but one part of the film.

Annie Hall > Star Wars.

What I find ironic about that is Rian Johnson has named Annie Hall, the film that beat Star Wars for best picture, as one of the films that influenced him most. Which might explain why he hates Star Wars so much and worked so hard to kill it.

And the Oscar for Best Picture of the year goes to...

It's a good performance. His version of the end titles promotes the brass and sounds badass. Erich Kunzel's recording of the SpaceCamp end titles blows the original away. It's my go-to track for testing out headphones. Absolutely glorious. Sometimes, there are moments where certain instruments are more prominent and don't have the same "oomph" in the original recording. We'll use Kunzel again in "The Departure" from E.T. In that alternate original segment that was replaced for the film version (which everyone prefers), there's a really bone-chilling rendition of E.T.'s theme (or "The Call" as some refer to it) by the oboe or clarinet (?) that sounds a lot better on the Star Tracks version.

It's sooo beautiful. Love the way Luke's Exile theme seamlessly transitions from Rey's Theme towards the end, as he observes from atop the cliff. Such a fantastic new theme. Sadly the film cue is riddled with obvious microedits; the original cue was probably recorded for a longer version of the sequence. Alas, we'll need to wait many years, nay decades, to actually hear it.

He should do it more often.

Technician (shouting): Mr. Williams please sit in this seat. JW: Here? Technician (shouting): Yes. Now look into this box. Mr. Spielberg will appear here. JW: Really? How? Technician (shouting): Don't trouble yourself with that. Ah here he is. Mr. Williams you can now start speaking to Mr. Spielberg. JW (shouting): How wonderful Stevie baby. I can see you in this box! Spielberg (shouting): No need to shout Johnny I can hear you just fine. Now let's get down to spotting.

That's some good stuff in there! Marianelli seemed quite responsive. My favourite parts:

Ron Jones, Walter Murphy, or John Williams.