Omen II

I love how the Throne Room music is listed as the Royal Presentation in the programme notes for the LSO in Space concert from 1978. I will henceforth be using that title in preference to the more locative Throne Room. Although it was not that long ago (43 years), it is still surprising to see just how few women there were in the LSO in those days - just the clarinet and the two harpists. Most of the major orchestras in the UK have a pretty even male / female split today by accident or design, indeed it is not uncommon to see orchestras comprised of more women than men nowadays. Also, with a few exceptions, the names of the players are overwhelmingly British in 1978, while the LSO is much more multinational in 2021. Just an observation on how times have changed in a relatively short period. Useless factoid alert: the son of the fourth bassoon player was in my year at school.

Summon the Heroes definitely replaced the Olympic Fanfare in the 1996 concerts. The listing on the flyer posted by Miguel had changed slightly by the time of the actual concerts, as is wont to happen with these things. I still have the programme from the concert and have taken a quick photo. I remember that one of the encores was the Raiders March and I know they also played The Sugarland Express with the flute substituting for a harmonica, but I cannot remember if that was in the 96 or one of the 98 concerts.

I was at the concerts in 1996 and 1998 but unfortunately I do not have any photos, much as I wish I did. The 1985 concert was a little before my time, but I have seen some photos of the concert on a thread on Film Score Monthly a couple of years back. Filmharmonic 85 - photos not mine 16th November 1985. There were two LSO concerts conducted by John Williams in the open air sculpture court at the Barbican on 8th and 9th August 1982. You could try emailing the archivist at the LSO (Libby Rice) who might be willing to email you a scan of the programme(s) if you ask nicely!

WRONG! I have done some further internet research on the matter and it turns out - much to my surprise - that twenty-first century dinosaurs do indeed have fur. Must go faster!

Why is the dinosaur furry?

The annual Classic FM poll is based on the radio station's listeners nominating their three favourite pieces of classical (in the broadest sense of the term) music. Classic FM tends to play the more accessible pieces from the classical repertoire without too much variety - you are unlikely to hear any Stockhausen or Boulez, for example - therefore to some degree the poll will always reflect the pieces they play most. Prokofiev is played on Classic FM, but it tends to be either Dance of the Knights from Romeo and Juliet or the troika from Lieutenant Kije and not much else. @Fabulin's list shows the composers with most entries in the top 300 and the positions of those entries. If Classic FM was a BBC station you might have a point about diversity, but Ronald Binge's music is about as white and English as you can get. His light music is especially well loved by British listeners of a certain age, especially Sailing By, Elizabethan Serenade and The Watermill. Listeners will not vote for something they don't like, so it is a fairly democratic poll at least. As for Einaudi, while the attraction of his music is largely lost on me, the fact is that Classic FM plays it an awful lot so he is bound to feature prominently in any poll of listeners to the station.

I am hoping that this electrifying performance of Erich Wolfgang Korngold's Tomorrow from The Constant Nymph will show up in good quality on YouTube eventually. Until then, this post by mezzo soprano Kate Lindsey on the Book of Face will have to suffice (video quality is not as good and there is a slight lag between picture and sound, but better than a kick in the teeth). Tomorrow For me this was the highlight of the 2019 BBC Proms season.

I love how Dimitri Tiomkin uses the horns almost as if they are chiming bells at the end of The Big Sky (the video should start just before the bit I mean).

Could those be M&Ms rather than Skittles? If so, surely the iron fist of Mike Matessino must be involved in this / these upcoming release(s). The guttering is an obvious clue to The Manitou by Lalo Schifrin, because both words contain the letter 'u'.

It's an excellent CD. I suspect I am not the only one here who attended the concert at which it was recorded. Richard Kaufman's daughter Whitney sang a couple of the songs (the one from Wild Is the Wind, for example) and Tiomkin's widow Olivia was in the audience not far from where I was sitting. The other vocalist Andy Playfoot can often be seen with the Maida Vale Singers accompanying the John Wilson Orchestra - here he is opening the singing in There Is Nothin' Like A Dame from South Pacific: I remember also spotting the American conductor Andrew Litton in the audience at the concert.

Fun fact #1: I won my CD of James Horner’s Titanic from Classic FM by correctly identifying the main title music from All About Eve. It was in the late 90s so I had to send my answer in on a postcard. I remain convinced to this day that I was the only person listening to the programme (which was very late on a Sunday night) who a) knew the answer and b) bothered to write in. I remember my Mum being quite excited when she happened to hear my name read out on the wireless. Fun fact #2: The Titanic CD was scratched and unplayable, so I had to contact Classic FM and ask for a replacement! 😆

There Is No ‘E’ In Threesome 🤔

Ahem! 🐜

^ My Best Friend’s Welding

Be careful he doesn’t rape you!

Yes. It’s an entertaining film (if a tad too long) and the mountain climbing scenes are genuinely gripping. Some of the dialogue you could not get away with nowadays, but if anything that makes it more fun. Great cinematography and score to boot.

Purse of the Werewolf 👛 🐺

The most notable example is the strident synthesiser heard accompanying the death plunge of enemy agent Kruger from an apartment window in the film version of Up The Drainpipe. You will not hear this on the album, however. For the album rerecording, Williams replaced the synthesiser note with an equally strident two-note trumpet stinger, heard at about [2:46] in the album track. Hopefully a future expansion will allow listeners to compare the original film and rerecorded album versions.

Qatari!

Night of the Munter

Salmon Fishing in the Semen

The Snobs of Kilimanjaro

The Best Pears of Our Lives

What Did You Do in the Car, Daddy?

Bummer of 42