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Omen II

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Omen II last won the day on October 23 2023

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  1. I saw Laurie Johnson with his London Big Band about twenty years ago in Croydon's Fairfield Hall of all places. It was really good. Although Laurie Johnson must have been in his mid-seventies then, he was a positive youngster compared to some of the other musicians on stage, a few of which were in their nineties! I seem to remember that Jack Parnell and Don Lusher were among those in the orchestra. While a lot of his most famous TV themes and film scores were just a little bit before my time, many are so familiar to British listeners even if they do not necessarily know who composed them - Animal Magic, This Is Your Life, Whicker's World and many more. His themes for The Professionals and The New Avengers should make the shortlist if ever Great Britain needs a new national anthem.
  2. “I Can’t Believe It’s Real Estate” 👽👽👽
  3. I noticed that this new biography about Elmer Bernstein by his son Peter was available on Amazon: Elmer Bernstein biography Has anyone here read it? If so, would you recommend it?
  4. It was interesting to see the harp positioned immediately in front of the conductor for the violin concerto, given its prominent role in the work. It reminded me of those old photos of Max Steiner or Alfred Newman in front of some Hollywood studio orchestra from back in the day. I have yet to explore the second violin concerto beyond a couple of listens all the way through, but hearing it live certainly whetted my appetite for diving deeper into it. This was my first time seeing Anne-Sophie Mutter play live so it was also my first live experience of any of the pieces which Williams has arranged for her. I would say that the pieces from The Long Goodbye and Cinderella Liberty worked best for me, possibly because Mutter's style of playing has quite a breathy, flautando quality to it which is not always to my taste but very much suits those two jazzy, vocal pieces. As Tom mentioned above, it seemed a pity that the concert could not have closed with more orchestral Williams, as great a score as Leonard Bernstein's On the Waterfront is. I felt a little sorry for the horn player who flubbed a couple of notes in his first two solos, although I am not sure most people other than pedantic film music geeks like me would have noticed. It is amazing to think that John Williams gave the London premiere of his symphony in the same venue more than fifty years ago, with Bernard Herrmann in the audience! I grabbed a few photos for the record.
  5. Here is a copy of the free programme for tomorrow's concert with the LPO, if you are interested: LPO Programme
  6. I have been reading The British Bloke Decoded by stand-up comedian Geoff Norcott. It is very funny, although you might need to be British and, er, a bloke to fully appreciate the references and humour. He deals with such important subjects as our favourite motorway service stations, football and, of course, why British blokes want medals for performing basic tasks. Anyway, I was pleasantly surprised to read two positive references to John Williams in successive chapters. In a chapter entitled 'Hero Daydreams' (come on, we all have them) he writes: His Williams fandom is then confirmed just a few pages later in the next chapter about the ending of Return of the Jedi when Darth Vader "decides he's had enough and lobs the emperor into a giant recycling bin." Here he is, for the uninitiated:
  7. I'd settle for a Fanfare for Carlton Palmer if it came from the pen of John Williams! As well as in Stepmom, there are also some football scenes in Story of a Woman, but I cannot remember if any of them are scored by Williams (pun intended). The main character played by James Farentino is a footballer and is shown scoring a goal intercut with what appears to be some genuine footage of a match between AS Roma and Juventus, I think. Perhaps our Johnny is looking at combining a concert trip to Berlin with the Euro 2024 final so that he can have it large.
  8. Is that Perry Botkin (front row) the composer of Skyjacked and Mork & Mindy fame? And Gene Estes (next to him) the renowned drummer?!
  9. I got this CD recently and just wanted to say how much I am enjoying it. I have been aware of Laurence Rosenthal for as I have been interested in film music, but I remained largely unfamiliar with most of his output, with the exception of a couple of things I had on compilations such as Meteor and The Return of a Man Called Horse. This CD therefore is a most welcome summary of some of Rosenthal's most notable works for film and television. If you love top quality orchestral film music, I cannot recommend this recording highly enough.
  10. “Dip-lo-matic immunity!” It’s just been revoked. 😢
  11. Look what arrived today! The front of the CD case is cracked but worse things happen at sea and the cat doesn’t seem to mind.
  12. I certainly never interpreted the (in my opinion, perfectly reasonable) request not to record the proceedings or check in on Facebook - like I even know what that means! - as a command not to discuss the event with anyone afterwards. The only thing I was not sure about was whether details of the various clips which Mike played could be disclosed, but @mahler3 seems to have put that one to bed above. My favourite audio clip was a recording of Williams recording the 'wild takes' with the choir for Close Encounters of the Third Kind, with Spielberg in the booth requesting various different tempi and pitches. There were a few audience questions, most of which I cannot remember now, but I do remember the LSO musicians citing Revenge of the Sith and Monsignor as their respective personal favourites of the Williams scores on which they played. Eric Crees also said that John Williams was a better conductor than ninety percent of the career conductors he had worked with. It was nice to meet both Tim and Maurizio briefly when I arrived, both of them being instantly recognisable from the various video podcasts I had seen over the years. It is fair to say that most of the attendees were men (an observation which will come as no surprise to anyone here ), although amongst the few women there was composer Alexandra Harwood. I was chatting to another of the attendees, a bloke called Adam beforehand who had travelled down from Liverpool for the event, quite impressive when I had just a short Tube journey. I did not stay to watch the film as I had to see a man about a dog that evening, but it was a very enjoyable afternoon. To my great surprise I was also one of the lucky winners in the raffle / prize draw. I thought that maybe it would be one CD or a Legacy of John Williams keyring or something, but it was a mightily impressive bundle of Blu-Rays, CDs and other goodies which would have cost a small fortune to purchase new.
  13. Although I have attended a lot of concerts featuring John Williams' music for the Star Wars films over the years, this one had so much that I had not heard live in concert before. You could tell the concert had been put together by genuine Williams fans, so well done to @mahler3 (whom I spotted waiting in the wings a few times!) and to @TownerFan who was evidently responsible for the informative and pleasingly accurate programme notes. As well as the UK concert premiere of music from The Rise of Skywalker posted above by @Biodome, yesterday was the first time I had heard the revised version of Han Solo and the Princess in concert. It might take a bit of getting used to, but having heard it live I think it's a grower. I was happy that the full version of Luke and Leia (apparently conductor Stephen Bell's favourite piece of music from the saga) was played rather than the truncated version heard sometimes more recently. The Lucasfilm Logo, The Adventures of Han Solo and The Rebellion is Reborn were also treats which I had not sampled live before. I thought the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra was excellent yesterday evening. I did not notice any flubbed notes at all, the exposed horn solos in Princess Leia's Theme and Luke and Leia usually very unforgiving but both played perfectly. I was in the choir seats immediately behind the xylophone, glockenspiel, vibraphone, cowbells, etc. and I loved watching the percussionists dart about between the various instruments. I had not noticed before that the opening of Rey's Theme was played on vibraphone, glockenspiel and marimba. It was also nice that the conductor made the first violins stand after The Asteroid Field, as the other sections of the orchestra usually get the love. Here are a few grainy photos taken from my vantage point.
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