Joni Wiljami

I am performing in these concerts😎
 
Unfortunately there are few changes in the program, for some reason The Asteroid Field and The Forest Battle were left out of that third concert. Never played those, so sad!😭😍
 
Wonderful program in any case.
 

I am performing in these concerts😎
 
Unfortunately there are few changes in the program, for some reason The Asteroid Field and The Forest Battle were left out of that third concert. Never played those, so sad!😭😍
 
Wonderful program in any case.
 

I am performing in these concerts😎
 
Unfortunately there are few changes in the program, for some reason The Asteroid Field and The Forest Battle were left out of that third concert. Never played those, so sad!😭😍
 
Wonderful program in any case.
 

Hello 👋! The BBC commissioned a film music radio show from a friend & I which is now available on BBC Sounds and airs locally on BBC Radio Ulster here in NI.
 
Lots of JW’s music is featured in addition to John Barry, Max Steiner and Nino Rota.
 
The show is only 30 minutes and doesn’t have wall to wall music, but I hope you find the content interesting and enjoyable.
 
Clicks on the show will be very helpful in securing a second series which I hope to have much more music within, so if you are willing to click and listen I’d be very grateful. Sorry if this all sounds overly needy.
 
I can say that the 6th episode features a very special John Williams treat which nobody has heard before. I am pretty sure you’ll love it! :-)
 
Thanks for your support!
 
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/m001k0kk?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile
 
 

Hey @Hornist, I miss your avatar!

I'm not very much into Williams Olympic triumphant mode so I chose the devastating Remembering Munich. (which I don't think should be in this poll at all, but anyway)

TBT - My biggest pet hate! The Book Thief. 

1. Mark Rylance - BFG
2. Wiliam Hurt - AI, Accidental Tourist
3. John Hurt - Indy 4
4. Emily Watson - WarHorse, TBT
 
 

I've been listening to this soundtrack more lately and I love how small and intimate it is. The score is largely compromised of piano solos and a small string ensemble sound with a few other featured instruments. The only time is goes into a larger orchestral sound is with the end credits and I actually like that music the least. The very quiet, intimate music is the best way to present the two themes and to match the picture. Even the themes have a simplicity and restraint to them. The descending mother's dance theme is so simple, yet so effective.

You know, I'd buy that in a heartbeat.

TLJ is the best mixed modern JW action score. I hope DOD matches or surpasses it in terms of JW's music being front and center. 

I just saw this shared on social media. Very cool! Williams and Jones already performed the GUNN theme live in a Mancini tribute concert some 4-5 years ago, but gotta dig the line-up of this recording session for an actual new Mancinin tribute album. Just wish the videos of the recording session itself lasted longer.
 
 
 
 

Deadline has shared video highlights from the event (about eight minutes total).

May 3rd and 5th, 2024 at Symphony Center, Chicago, IL
Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Chicago Symphony Chorus
Richard Kaufman, conductor
https://cso.org/performances/23-24/cso-at-the-movies/close-encounters-of-the-third-kind-in-concert/
 

CE4K confirmed!

I still have trouble with the 'A' part of the theme, whereas going into the 'B' part and whatever you call the rest, is a bit more interesting.
 
My main issue is that for scores I love, they instantly evoke some sort of imagery, place, situation, etc very strongly. So strong in fact that I have scores/tracks I can't listen to because the association went 'wrong' and I don't want to remember some memory.
 
With this score, nothing appears in my mind for most of it. The main theme, and the melodty in Mitzi's Dance, sure - I can picture a pleasant cinematic image, but it doesn't go much further than that. Certainly, the idea of Mother and Son being composition of the year... umm, what?

I feel like the emotional response music gives me is the most important thing.  The Fabelmans theme for me evokes simple familial love and nostalgia for youth.  It's not the most complex theme but I think its simplicity works in its favor.

Dumb and dumber

Thanks, Jay.

I had a dream today where The Fabelmans won the Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director and, of course, Best Original Score. But for some reason JW's sixth win wasn't well received among JWFans, who weren't fond of mentioning this score in the same breath as ET, Star Wars, Schindler's List and Jaws.
 
Was it a prophecy? Or just too much JWFan?

I don't exactly like the use of the term "Classical Music Elite" here. There are plenty of "elite" figures in the field of classical music who have embraced film music as a natural continuation of that tradition. I don't think anyone should be excessively impressed by the lonely tweets of some old-school music critics or musicologists.
 
Still, as I have already expressed in the past, I wish I could hear more structured pieces performed in JW's concerts. A perfect example would be the final act of Close Encounters, that @Michael Grigorowitsch used in his reply to the musicologist above - played exactly like that in its 21-minute splendor, as it is. Analogous sequences could be realized for many of JW's scores, and I think many classically-oriented musicians (me included) would prefer to get a concert made of pieces like this, rather than compilations of Main Titles, End Titles, and 3-minute theme arrangements. In other words, it takes time to tell a good story in music (as JW knows very well) and I wish we could get more full stories in his concerts. I'm sure that this would increase his popularity with musicians who might be knowledgeable about classical music, but maybe never bothered to listen to a film score in its entirety outside the movie theater.    

Has anyone else heard of this new arrangement?
 
 
https://jarijuhanikallio.wordpress.com/2023/01/30/from-symphonic-beethoven-to-john-williams-with-emanuel-ax-leonidas-kavakos-and-yo-yo-ma/
 
What, one might ask, could steal the show after two such inspired performances of Beethoven. In this case, the answer was none other than John Williams, whose iconic Theme from Schindler’s List (1993) was heard as a profoundly captivating encore. Commissioned by the trio over a phone call with the composer, Williams’s pristine arrangement focuses on the prayer-like intimacy of the music, while retaining emotional subtlety of the original orchestral score.

Warning - this is probably a rather specialist post!
 
I've been doing a lot of analytical work on The Empire Strikes Back this season (2022-2023) and am about half way through now. There's tons of information on themes and advanced harmony (octatonic, hexatonic, Hungarian minor and Super Locrian etc) (see Frank Lehman's thematic catalogue or Mark Richards' fabulous course on Action Music Cues ) but there's not as much information on JW's atonalism: pc set theory doesn't always tell the whole story with Williams who often combines atonalism with advanced harmony. It's a similar situation to that which has occupied musicologists about let's say the Augers Chord from Stravinsky's Rite of Spring. (for a wide discussion see Daniel Chua here  (music analysis Volume26, Issue1-2 March‐July 2007 Pages 59-109

What struck me about the Chua article was the interesting take that Stravinsky himself had on the augers chord. When he plays it for a CBS interview -  he voices the chord in three ways - firstly the Fb chord but then the G then Db, Bb Eb which is the seed motif for the rest of the accompaniment in that segment. It exemplified the problems of calling it an Eb 13 (because you have to literally rearrange all the notes!), or 7-32 (for the same reason, it ceases to become that chord and becomes something else) along with amy modal or octatonic analysis (there is an anomalous note which doesn't 'fit' and modally bears no relation in that voicing to a harmonic minor mode), or, bitonal (Stravinsky doesn't play the chord as a bitonal chord when he individualises the notes in the CBS interview ). JW. Chua also cites others who say 'it's just hand position...nothing more' which he says is a cop out! Chua eventually considers the Augers chord as a 'sonority' and a sign in a semiotic sense and one which defies most analysis.

Perhaps by taking Chua's conclusions and applying them to JW we could consider sonority as a useful way of defining separate standalone chords within JW's atonalism. Intervallic content can be defined better if we consider the melodic order - in a particular voicing.

It's an interesting problem and am keen to hear viewpoints.             

I've enclosed this cue as the emperor appears towards the end and there's quite a bit of atonalism in there.  
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nxe_rd2GVPY

I'm convinced by now Babylon will win the award. 
 
I felt Williams had a very good chance a few weeks ago, but there is no momentum left behind his work for The Fabelmans. The stars just aren't aligned anymore in his favor.
 
Despite this: I really enjoy his work for The Fabelmans and regard the main theme as one of his most beautiful compositions. 
 
And that is more important to me than another Oscar win.