Gruesome Son of a Bitch

The chair creak at the end of "Journey to the Island".

I've just listened to the whole new Jurassic Park. I think my favourite new piece is track 9 on disc one. I like the thump it has on my hi-fi.
 
Otherwise, it's too long. You could probably get s 40, maybe even 30 minute album from this.

'Willow' (the last time i heard it while being halfway passed out on the metro after a hard day's night) is an eternal favourite of mine. It just has everything that's great about James Horner punched into one big bag full of (rather sophisticated) fun. 
 
The cue 'Elora Danan' is one for the ages: i would not hesitate to put it in any Top 10 of film music's big achievements. What Horner constructs in this 10-minute opener, a marvel of musical storytelling that even manages to incorporate quotations from 300 years of music history without any stylistic breach (Mozart: Requiem, Rachmaninoff: 3rd Symphony, Janacek: Glagolitic Mass, Bartók: Cantata Profana, the bulgarian peasant song 'Mir Stranke Le' as the main theme), remains testament to his genius: only later that impression would start to crumble, here only the eternal nitpickers couldn't see the forest for the trees - while it is interesting to read about the vast variety of classical works Horner drew from, i never got the accusatory posture: would the 'Theme from Willow' really profit from having enough notes changed at the beginning to not resemble Schumann? It is idiomatically in the same ballpark, anyway, accept it or move on.
 
But apart from that there are also large parts of 'Willow' that sharply put into focus Horner's ability to distinguish himself from his mighty predecessors: regularly interrupting the romantic fabric are harsh interjections of dissonance and modern compositional techniques (being Horner, of course the Shakuhachi blasts and Penderecki are never far away) that put 'Willow' in a league of his own, never being just a backwards classical pastiche but a vital combination of all old and new of the musical heritage (it's clearly a score written by a studious albeit young-ish professor).
 
With all that said, 'Willow' remains probably Horner's magnum opus (it certainly isn't mawkish pop pap like 'Titanic') that should make us thankful he got a few opportunities to use this unique talent and being largely left to his own instincts. It's the one big expansion i crave and would order in a heartbeat - but the old 73-minute album remains a reference anyway.
 
 

Umm-hmm, rich, powerful. If you were to rescue her, the reward would be... well I think a 20 should do it.

It only declined because Williams left!

Williams is a modern day Gershwin that took progressive jazz and standards writing and dressed it up for orchestra. I'm constantly amazed at his depth of compositional language from a chordal stand point and the areas he explores. It's much easier to analyze his works from a jazz perspective than from a traditional theory. He uses keys to influence mood unlike any other composer for film. It's quite clear he has a deep love of ballet, opera, and tone poems. His awareness of the standard rep and even the more esoteric material has certainly informed his orchestrations and given him this incredible paintbrush to use for every film he works on. From a music stand point, it's his timbre and tone colors that make his style so unique.
 
As well, his ear is impeccable as a conductor. I have never regarded him as a good conductor (and I have no doubt that was part of the reason Boston and him had some trouble at one point) but he has great ears from the podium and no one can create as clean a take as he can so quickly. He does have the best playing for him, but that is only part of the equation. 
 
But by far my favorite thing about Williams is his humility and somewhat self loathing quality. He writes what he thinks is needed for the film and never boasts that his work is any good. He simply enjoys the journey of writing, refuses to let the strict classical community get to him, and continues to explore his own voice while staying true to the core of his style, even at this age. His work ethic is incredible as well and given his personality and love for writing, I have no doubt that some of his best works and sketches will be discovered in a filing cabinet labeled "little nothing works."
 
It's sad that I really don't see anyone as complete of a musician as him coming up through film. He has been blessed to have a name that allowed him to blow holes through most fast pace production environments and consider the music as a complete package that needed time, but the younger folks don't have this liberty. It's probably the true reason he doesn't work with any young directors aside from the price.
 
Overall, I think his work will be looked upon for centuries as the culmination of the symphonic film score era. I hope someone close to him can encourage him at this age to take on a protege to learn some of his shortcuts, discussions with directors during spotting, and learn some more detailed insight to the process so we can continue truly symphonic scores that actually match film moving forward. 

Casper
 
I love it.

It's ET&Elliot, judging from the hint of nervous breakdown i get from the text.

I have soft spot for James Thatcher's horn solos that is all.

Are you slowly turning into SelinaKyle aka RoseDawson?

Always by John Williams
 
The John Williams Jurassic Park Collection
 
Agatha Christie's Poirot by Christopher Gunning
 
The BFG by John Williams

Two equally (and wonderfully) indulgent christmas listens:
 

 
At first i was afraid of too much anachronistic 1940's cuteness - the fairy tale setting kind of invites it and i can't stand Max Steiner and Korngold's more mickey-mousy efforts - but Rózsa for the most part elegantly sails around that. What's more, the thematic treasure trove opened up by filling in instrumental voices for the song alternates makes the melodies finally come to life without recalling third-rate operettas, a problem that plagued the otherwise superb Bernstein re-recording from the 70's with its throatlump baritones.
 
Stylistically it's a cross between Rimsky-Korsakoff (Sheherezade) and pure Rozsa, full of palace processions, horsemen fanfares, brimming with little side melodies and yearning love themes plus kept-in-check dramatic shenanigans that could go overboard in Rózsa's more 'serious' efforts like 'Ben-Hur' or 'El Cid': it's all light on its feet. It's prototypical Rózsa, of course, in that its obvious that he might respond to the images on the screen but remains first and foremost a voice dedicated to creating a serious musical work within the confines of movie scoring. 
 
It might be a dubious comparison but my recent struggle with 'Star Wars: Rogue One' sprung exactly from the total lack of such pretensions: today it has come to a point where rough approximation is enough, forget finer points of counterpoint, instrumental timbres or basic compositional ability to create a larger idiomatic parenthesis in which your work resides. We are almost lost for composers who write for films but are saddled with 'film music specialists' (Rózsa's own derogatory words) and while i give MG benefit of the doubt here (he at least is enthusiastic about the things he does), the sad fact remains that enthusiasm alone can't make up for solid craftmanship.
 
Back to Bagdad: it's also almost 2,5-hours full of (often totally different) alternates and concert versions, so for the price you really can't lose.
 

 
Another one for the season: 'Home Alone 2' (a soulless filmic retread if there ever was one) loses one or two points for the lack of the charmingly unique chamber music approach of the first one but also is a musical landmark in Williams' career inasmuch it is 'Home Alone 2' that is referenced (and quoted verbatim) in i. e. his later Potter scores as well as the more recent 'Tintin' and 'The BFG'.
 
Best described as a bridging work between then and now it features a special sheen and orchestral splendour that wasn't absent in JW's work before it but kind of seals the deal on his Prokoviev/Tchaikovsky/Broadway persona with the ego to engage every orchestral section with extensive festive flourishes, elaborate scherzos and marches and a cabinet full of side melodies that are strict indulgences, musically (most of them are not really needed, dramatically speaking, but are extremely enjoyable in their own right when you are in the mood).
 
The Big Apple, at least the part 'HA 2' cares to show, glitters with glockenspiel, celesta and bells like an elaborate Christmas gift package and alone merits three or four distinct melodic ideas, a honour bestowed even to the most inconsequential bellboy, really (makes you wonder why Trump's cameo goes musically unnoticed).
 
The scarier parts are handled in much the same way and it's here that the Potter comparisons really come to the fore: just listen to 'HA 2's 'Haunted Brownstone' cue and almost the whole Potter universe, at least of parts one and deux, opens up in your ears. Like the movie, the score works hard but stays out its welcome in the final painful half an hour with increasingly shocking booby traps that might be modeled on old Tom & Jerry cartoons but somehow make you feel like watching a dry run for 'Saw I-V'. Williams mickey-mouses heavily here and while he is not above reusing prior 'HA' cues there is new material for at least 3 further movies (thankfully John Hughes never became that desperate). 
 
Adding two big christmas tunes to the mix (probably aborted ideas from movie one) this one feels like the meal ticket with a wide collection of pastries and deserts piled on top. It's nothing you could or should have every day - not even every week - but life would be just a tad less rewarding without indulgences so 'Home Alone 2' gets some credit from me for doing it right long before its more famous cousins arrived 10 years later.

What's the artist's name?

Something Williams?

You walk up to JW's house, knock politely, and, when he opens the door, you shove a vinyl copy of HEARTBEEPS under his nose, put a pen in his hand, and a gun to his head, and say "listen, bitch, in ten seconds, either your signature, or your brains is going to be on this record cover".
I guarantee he'll sign...
Of course, you'll end-up jail, but that's the choice that you make 

Didn't realise I necer responded to this. So nearly 3 years on...
 
"Fate" motif - Be Careful of Your Friend, Palpatine's Big Pitch, Palpatine Instructs Anakin, Moving Things Along, Padmé's Visit, It Can't Be, Anakin Crawling, 
 
Sith motif - Palpatine's Big Pitch, It Can't Be
 
Mustafar theme - Moving Things Along
 
 
 
 

It's "stable"? Well I'm glad you're here to tell us these things. Chewie, take the professor in the back and plug him into the hyperdrive!

Titanic.
 
Oh, Williams?
 
Low below
Where dead men go
Low below
The time goes slow

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's/Philosopher's Stone
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Home Alone 2: Lost in New York
Amazing Stories: The Mission
Jaws

You can mess with a lot of things, but you can't mess with Williams on Christmas.

The Polydor ROTJ!

The Polydor ROTJ!

You can mess with a lot of things, but you can't mess with Williams on Christmas.

Well that was money spent.

That cheeky woodwind at 12:38!